DUCE RUSE REL REL 


The Metropolitan Museum of Art 
The 
AMERICAN WING 











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The Metropolitan Museum of Art 


The 
AMERICAN WING 


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Peeve PROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART 


A 


mexN 1 BOOK 


of the 
AMERICAN WING 


OPENING EXHIBITION 


Paver We tL LATSEY 
and 


CHARLES QO. CoRNELIUS 


Assistant Curator in the Department of Decorative Arts 


SECOND EDITION 


WITH CORRECTIONS 


INET NAW OTOP RSS 
Printed and Sold by the Museum 
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COPYRIGHT 
 BYTHES” 26 
METROPOLITAN MUSEUM 
_ NOVEMBER, 1924 _ 


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Lenders 


Mr. Edward W. C. Arnold 

Dr. and Mrs. Charles E. Atwood 

Mr. W. Gedney Beatty 

Mr. and Mrs. John Insley Blair 

Mr. and Mrs. Allan B. A. Bradley 

Brooklyn Museum 

Mr. Thomas B. Clarke 

Hon. A. T. Clearwater 

Mrs. George H. Clements 

Mrs. Robert W. de Forest 

Mrs. Carl A. de Gersdorff 

Mr. Frederic Ashton de Peyster 

Mr. W. B. Osgood Field 

Mr. Allen Evarts Foster 

Mr. and Mrs. Francis P. Garvan 

Mr. G. Glen Gould 

Mr. R. T. H. Halsey 

Miss Ella Hendrickson and Miss 
Louise Hartshorne 

Mr. Peter A. Jay 

Mr. Pierre Jay 

Mr. Walter Jennings 

Mr. J. Herbert Johnston 

Mr. and Mrs. Oswald W. Knauth 

Mr. and Mrs. Luke Vincent Lockwood 

Mr. Roland M. Moore 

Mrs. Helen Morgan 

The Misses Morris 

Mr. Orson Munn 

Mr. and Mrs. Louis Guerineau Myers 


Vv 


V1 


LAB NeDe hss 


Mrs. Marsden J. Perry 
Mr. Herbert L. Pratt 
Mrs. W. A. Putnam 

Mr. Philip L. Spalding 
Mr. I. N. Phelps Stokes 
Mr. Joseph Striker 

Mr. and Mrs. Robert C. Taylor 
Mrs. Nathaniel Thayer 
Mrs. I. Sheldon Tilney 
Mr. Howard Townsend 
Mr. Harry Wearne 

Dr. Faneuil Weisse 

Mrs. Miles White, Jr. 
Mr. H. Rogers Winthrop 
Mr, John M, Woolsey 





Preface 


7 De building known as the American Wing, an 
addition to the Museum building devoted en- 
tirely to American art of the Colonial, Revolutionary, 
and Early Republican periods, is the gift of the 
President of the Museum, Robert W. de Forest, and 
Mrs. de Forest. The collections there shown are in 
large part the outcome of the interest in early Ameri- 
can art aroused by the Hudson-Fulton Exhibition, 
held at the Museum in 1909. In December of that 
year Mrs. Russell Sage gave the Museum the H. 
Eugene Bolles Collection of American furniture. 
Thus initiated, the collection of American decorative 
arts has steadily increased through gifts and pur- 
chases. Owing to limitations of exhibition space, it 
has been impossible until now to show more than a 
small part of this material. Trusting, nevertheless, 
that suitable accommodations would eventually be 
available, the Museum from the first has pursued the 
policy of acquiring the interiors and architectural 
details which are a feature of the installation of the 
new wing, where, through the generosity of Mr. and 
Mrs. de Forest, the collections have at last found a 
home befitting their importance. 

The work of arranging the collections in their pres- 
ent galleries has been done by members of the De- 
partment of Decorative Arts, under the inspiring 
direction, with tireless energy, of the Chairman of the 
Committee on American Decorative Art, R. T. H. 
Halsey. The many problems confronted in this 
work, differing from those which would be encoun- 


Vil 


Vill PREFACE 

tered in the assembling of objects of art from other 
countries because of the scarcity of literary or other 
authority on them, have made it a task of great dif- 
ficulty. 

The plans for the American Wing, which presented 
many unusual problems, were prepared by Grosvenor 
Atterbury in collaboration with the Museum authort- 
ties. In the installation of some of the old interiors, 
where certain restorations were required, the Museum 
has relied upon Norman M. Isham, the antiquarian 
architect of Providence, Rhode Island, whose life- 
long interest in and study of early New England 
houses rendered his assistance invaluable. The mod- 
ern reproductions of two rooms typical of the seven- 
teenth century were designed by and executed under 
the direction of George Francis Dow of Topsfield, 
Massachusetts. For the suggestion of roof treatment 
in the seventeenth-century exhibition gallery ac- 
knowledgment is due to William W. Cordingly of 
Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, who very kindly fur- 
nished drawings and a model of the roof trusses fol- 
lowing those in the First Parish Church of Hingham, 
Massachusetts, called the “Old Ship Meeting- 
House.’”’ Great assistance has been given by many 
friends of the Museum, who have placed freely at our 
disposal their knowledge derived from long study of 
the arts and crafts of the early days in America, as 
well as many heirlooms and objects acquired during 
years of studious collecting. 

EpwarbD RoBINSON, 
Director 


CONTENTS 


LENDERS 
PREFACE. 
CONTENTS 
ILLUSTRATIONS 


Inrropuction. The American Wing: Plan and 
Arrangement 


HANDBOOK OF THE AMERICAN WING . 


THIRD FLOOR 


The First Period of Early Ai American Art: 
From the Beginnings of New Eng- 
land through the First Quarter of 
the Fighteenth Century 


The Rooms of the First Period . 
Exhibition Gallery Paige, 
Reproductionsof Rooms from Tops- 

field and aueee Massachu- 
setts : : 
The Entry 
The Kitchen... 
The Parlor, or ieaniniadtiea 
Room from Newington, Connecticut 
Room from Hampton, New Hamp- 
shire 

Room from eeealn ats Rhode 
Palani ae. 

Room from Wosdtniry eae Telend 


1X 


XVil 


xX CONTE. Neies 


Page 
SECOND PLOOR = ae 99 
The Second Period of Early 4 American 
Art: From the First Quarter of the 
Eighteenth Se to the a 
Republiecgyersss a. 99 
The Rooms of the Second Period .  . 156 
Exhibition Gallery. ro a: 
Alcove off Exhibition Galler a euhUd 
Room from Oriole, Somerset 
County, Maryland:) 3333 egeetoe 
Ballroom from Alexandria, Virginia 172 
Room from ‘Marmion,’ King 
George County, Virginia. . 179 
Room from Philadelphia 7 33) auaae 
First FLoor 
Third Period of Early American Art: 
The Early Republic to 1325 5 eee 
The Rooms of the Third Period 226 
Exhibition Gallery. 5236 
Alcove off Exhibition Gallet ahi 


Room from Baltimore, Maryland . 237 


Room from Petersburg, Virginia . 244 

Room from Haverhill, Massachu- 
SGLtS wee SB 

Room from EHavermie Massaehe: 
SCEUSE.. : - 249 


The Charles Aller Munn Been BES 


Exrertior. Facade of the United States 
Branch Bank . .. ee 


INDEX. —.. : : : ; ; ; : : eos 


Figure 
. Chest of oak, carved, with stile and rail 


Illustrations 


paneling . 


. Chest with drawer, chest Gener Sy 


raised on anaes Carved, turned, 
and applied decoration 


. Desk-box of oak, carved 
. Desk-box on es which leads to the awe 


form. Turned and moulded decoration 


. Cupboard with carved decoration 
. Cupboard with turned decoration 
. Wainscot chair showing Jacobean influ- 


ence. Carved and turned decoration . 


. Slat-back chair . 

. Carver chair, spindle type 

Pe hevectvered chair 

. Chair with original Turkey-work me aml 
. Stools with turned legs and plain stretch- 


ers, one with moulded skirt 


. Trestle table of pine and oak 

webuttethy €able . 

. Gate-leg table of the ereeele oe 
. Rectangular table with turned and 


moulded decoration and fretwork . 


. Rectangular table with turned decoration 
. Cradle of stile and rail construction. 


Moulded decoration 


. Betty-lamp and_ rush- light Holder of 


wrought iron . 


. Lowboy veneered in biited od 


Xi 


XU 
Figure 


Ot. 


ae 


Ae 


2 
f 


Diy 


(sl eS vi R AST EON es 


Walnut highboy 


. Desk veneered in eeited foode 


Banister-back side-chair . 
Banister-back armchair with Stems ae 
Cane-back side-chair 


26. Couch showing use of Flemish sercltee in 


carving 
Armchair with Spanish ee es ae en 
legs 


. Side- ayn an Sie use ofeahente leon 


Beaker by ee Boelen (1654-1729), 
dated 1683 


. Tankard by Peter van Dick (1684-1750) 
. Inkstand by John Cony (1655-1722) . 

_ Beaker by Shem Drowne (1683-1774) 

. Porringer by John Cony (265 Sr 22)) 

_ Two-handled bowl by Jacob Boelen . 

. Porringer by an unknown maker 


. Baptismal basin my Jacobus van der Sp:e- 


gel 


. Teapot by ively ined follow aes the ‘Gin 


nese form of the porcelain pots first 1m- 
ported 


Teapot by Tan le Ror following a we 


sign reminiscent of turning 


. Main gallery, third floor 
. Reproduction of the kitchen of che Gane 


house, Topsfield (1683) 


. Reproduction of the parlor of the Hat 


house, Ipswich (1640) 


. Room from Newington, Connkecae 


Room from Hampton, New Hampshire ; 


— Room from Portsmouth, Rhode Island . 


IFLeLoUS I> RUA Rey O8N.S 


Figure 

45. Room from Woodbury, Long Island . 

46. Highboy and lowboy veneered with wal- 
nut, inlaid, carved, and gilded . 

47. Japanned lowboy, an example of a painted 
treatment very popular in the early 
eighteenth century. 

48. Walnut sofa made in Bhiladel see Ageia 
Sie 

49. Walnut corner ete onl Sek she aide 
in Philadelphia. ; 

so. Armchair of Philadelphia ee 

§1. Walnut desk, inlaid, with carved ernie 
legs i 

fo.) Vip-top “ale of wane Skeare Air er 
of the eighteenth century. . 

$3. Card-tables ee Chippendale ae 
ences. 

54. Armchair anti in Philadelphia ait aie 
chair showing Chippendale influence 

55. Highboy made in Philadelphia, showing 
Chippendale influence 


56. Tip-top tea-table showing Chinese 


influence. Made in Philadelphia, third 
quarter of the eighteenth century . 
$7. Clock, walnut, made in Philadelphia . 
58. Secretary with bombé base, showing the 
use of rococo forms and details 
$9. Block-front secretary with shells, made by 
John Goddard of Newport ; 
60-62. Eighteenth-century looking-glasses 
63. Chocolate pot by Edward Winslow aes 
1753) - 


64. Creamer ch eeiited Sabai ieee 


X11 
Page 
B) 


105 


107 


10g 


Liv 


Tete 


141 


X1V 


Figure 


65. 


66. 


Tesh Wes. th. RAT a Oe 


Pear-shaped teapots by Joseph Pinto (c. 
1765) and John Cony (1655— L722) 
Salver with rococo border, by Thomas 


Hamersly . 


. Punch bowl by Paul Revereate (e Tooeve 


. Group of three candlesticks showing ro- 


coco influence. 


. Glassware made in couthern Nee lee 


middle of the eighteenth century . 


. Engraved flip glass and covered mug 


from the factory of Henry William 
Stiegel 


. Pear-shaped salt- slit el aie rae 


the factory of Henry William Stiegel . 


. Engraving of Harvard eee Py ar 


1720 ee 


. Main il eer si: 


Alcove with mantelpiece from Gade S 


Tavern, Alexandria, Virginia, 1793 


- Room from Oriole, Somerset County, 


Maryland. 


. Ballroom from inlecantines Vico 
. Room from ‘‘Marmion,” King George 


County, Virginia . 


. Room from Philadelphia 
. Mahogany mixing-table and idehoerth in- 


laid, showing Sheraton influence 
Mahogany secretary, inlaid and veneered, 
showing Sheraton influence 


. Mahogany chest-on-chest showing in its 


lower portion a survival of Chippendale 
form combined with the classic influence 
of the late eighteenth century . 


205 


Figure 
82. 


33. 
84. 
85. 
86. 


87. 


88. 
89. 


go. 


flees d eR AT [ONES 


Sofa of mahogany, rosewood, and satin- 
wood, showing Sheraton influence . 

Mahogany armchair and upholstered arm- 
chair. Sheraton style. 

Mahogany side-chair and armchair eee 
ing Hepplewhite influence . 

Mahogany side-chairs showing eeraren 
influence . 

Armchairs from the eet e hae 
Phyfe, New-York, early nineteenth 
Sencunye. 

Drop-leaf table at vidhaseriye oan che 
workshop of Duncan Phyfe, New York, 
early nineteenth century . 

Desk of mahogany and satinwood, oer 
the American eagle inlaid . 

Tall clock of curly maple, with the iearers 
can eagle inlaid 

Looking-glass of wood sade Rais 
carved and gilded, and painted glass 


panel 


. Girandole A trrcunted ce an et fara 


ing a serpent . 


. Looking-glass with road a diate 


frame and painted glass panel . 


. Pierced fender with the American eagle in 


the design 
Urn-shaped silver with ne ae of Pal 
Revere (1735-1818) 


. Pitcher of the three-mould re senile 


nineteenth century 


. Bowl of Pennsylvania Geran Oars 


early nineteenth century 


XVI T [Tat Serene issn 


Figure Page 
g7. Colored drawing’ of the shop and ware- 
house of Duncan Phyfe, the New York 


cabinet=maken =e = 9a. AE pare 35 
98. Main gallery, first floor ~ 2pm 
99, ealeovieri as Sa lore 
100. Room from Balance Warylana oh yee 
101. Room from Petersburg, Virginia . . 243 
102. Parlor from Haverhill, Mass ose 
103. Bedroom from Haverhill, Mass... . 251 
104. The Charles Allen Munn Room. 399255 
105. Plan of the rooms of the third floor. . 261 
106. Plan of the rooms of the second floor. . 262 


107. Plan of the rooms of the first floor. . 263 


POOOOOOOOOISDO GO OOOVBIGGOVOOOVOED 
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Introduction 


VOPOOOOOOOOSOOOSS OOGS OOGGOOD 
THE AMERICAN WING: I¢s plan and 


arrangement 


OOSHaOSHE plan and arrangement of the Amer- 











© ©| ican Wing have been dictated by the 
2 AR | divisions into which falls, through prac- 
IS & tically two centuries, the history of the 


SSSSS® arts in North America. As here shown, 
these embrace examples which date from the first 
introduction on the eastern seaboard of those western 
European influences which have predominated in 
America for more than three hundred years. These 
divisions and subdivisions mark certain changes in 
artistic expression which are closely connected with 
the civilization of the people with whom this art 1s 
associated. We are therefore concerned not only with 
the actual objects themselves which make up the ex- 
hibitions on the three floors, but we must keep in 
mind as well something of the historic inheritance 
which these colonists brought with them to the new 
land, and something of the economic and social con- 
ditions which controlled their lives in their new 
homes. 

As shown in the American Wing, there are three 
general divisions of the whole history of the utilitarian 
arts in the American Colonies and the Early Repub- 
lic. These three divisions are distinctly marked by 


XVil 


XVIi1 CN ERO Dut Ch loos 


the arrangement of the building in three floors, each 
including a particular group of material homogeneous 
in its artistic feeling and expression. A chronological 
sequence is followed which enables the visitor to 
trace, from the earliest types to the latest, the changes 
which occurred in the arts surrounding the colonists 
of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and 
which followed the citizens of the Republic after their 
independence was achieved. 

Although these divisions are actually chronological 
when applied to the development of form and decora- 
tion, the unevenness of growth in provincial commu- 
nities makes a definite assigning of dates to general 
periods well nigh impossible. Characteristic styles 
which would appear for a short time in one place 
might in another place carry on for years after a new 
influence had begun to have its effect. For this rea- 
son it is more satisfactory to base any grouping or 
arrangement upon the homogeneity in form and 
decoration, and to assume as dates for the beginning 
and end of each particular style of expression the 
approximate time in which it was most general. 

A brief summary of the three periods had best be 
given here, to be followed by a fuller discussion of 
each in connection with its illustrative material. 

The First Period, exemplified by the exhibition on 
the third floor of the wing, includes the earlier forms 
of interior architecture and furniture used by the 
settlers of the seventeenth century. The rooms on 
this floor show not only these earliest types but also 
those which developed directly out of them, though 
still preserving in varying degree much of the earlier 
feeling. The latter material represents two distinct 
conditions. One of these is the survival, in provincial 


INTRODUCTION X1X 


communities, of the earlier traditions well into a 
time when they have been superseded in the more 
sophisticated settlements. The second condition is 
that which occurs in the transition which begins when 
the influences of a new artistic expression have begun 
to have their effect upon the older forms. This first 
period may be termed one of late Gothic tradition 
and it may be dated as approximately between the 
years of 1630 and 1726. 

The Second Period, of which the galleries on the 
second floor are representative, marks a very distinct 
change in many aspects from those typified in the 
preceding. It is characterized by a new theory of de- 
sign which grew out of the quickened activities of the 
Renaissance, constituting what may be termed the 
rococo style. Here are witnessed a much greater 
sophistication of taste and a more finished craftsman- 
ship. There is thus indicated an increased luxury 
based upon accumulated wealth and an attitude 
which encouraged a free expenditure of this wealth 
upon the physical surroundings of every-day life. It 
marks a time when fashion was all-powerful and when 
variety and novelty were eagerly sought after. We 
can see how the expression of this period grew natu- 
rally out of the transitional work shown on the floor 
above, and at the same time how far it departed from 
these early beginnings. This may be termed a period 
of rococo influence, and a rough dating would place 
it between the years of 1725 and 1790. 

The Third Period, whose characteristic expression 
is shown in the rooms on the first floor, is again a dis- 
tinct change from that immediately preceding. In 
contradistinction to the Renaissance foundation of 
the previous period, we have here a classical revival 


XX DN TR OD, Orr LON 


based directly upon newly discovered classical forms. 
Here are to be noted an attenuation of proportion and 
a delicacy of scale which characterize the change of 
taste and the new vocabulary of design. They mark 
a period influenced by fashionable taste, but by a 
taste unusually unified. This period, which coincides 
with the early years of the Republic, may be dated 
between 1790 and 1825. 

In the general arrangement it has been deemed 
advisable to render as emphatic as possible the dif- 
ferences between the periods by grouping together on 
the respective floors the fully developed forms of 
each. At the same time, there are exhibited in vari- 
ous places transitional pieces of furniture and other 
applied arts which will show the introduction of new 
elements into the prevailing design. 

Throughout any general discussion of the decora- 
tive arts two subjects, architecture and furniture, 
must form the background. In architecture we have 
probably the most conventional and most traditional 
of the arts, comparatively slow to change and chang- 
ing in small degree. In furniture is seen an art of 
utility responding quickly and easily to the changes of 
taste and usage, although following quite definitely 
certain traditions within which it grows. These two, 
architecture and furniture, form the background of 
the lesser utilitarian arts, and against them, both by 
contrast and relation, the variety and interest of the 
other crafts—metalwork, textiles, pottery, glass— 
stand out in high relief. The essential spirit of de- 
sign which imbues the work of a particular time finds 
its expression conservatively in the architecture, less 
conservatively in the furniture, and freely and ex- 
travagantly in the other crafts. In these last we 


TNT Re OrDcU. CLiale OON XX1 


will see a constant movement and variety, in some 
cases running in advance of the expression in furni- 
ture and woodwork, in other cases reverting to the 
style of an earlier day. 





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AMERICAN WING 


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CE LS, 
THE FIRST PERIOD of American art from 
the beginnings of New England through the 


first quarter of the eighteenth century 


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Seo eye beginnings of the first period of 


S's American artistic development lie in 
the earliest years of the permanent 


Bo Oh settlements of New England, the New 


BRA England whose sons are found in every 


state of the union. From this region come the ma- 
jority of the examples of utilitarian art of that time 
that have been preserved. Since this first period of 
settlement fell in a time when even the homeland was 
giving less attention than usual to the arts, it 1s re- 
markable that the first settlers should have sur- 
rounded themselves with so complete an equipment 
for pleasant living as they seem to have done. 

The first New England settlers as a rule came from 
the lower middle classes, the yeomanry of English 
provinces and the tradesmen and workmen of the 
cities. It was chiefly the small group of leaders who 
were derived from the educated classes, hence few of 
the traditions of taste and living of the English gen- 
tleman of that day were brought over early in the 
period or disseminated at all widely. Even of this 
small group of leaders few came from families of 
great wealth or high position. 

4 


4 TA EY CACM ERS CrAt Na Wer aNeG: 


In England itself, the nobility and gentry followed 
the fashions in the arts which originated in the 
capital, and these were slow indeed to reach the 
provinces. Slower still were they to reach the classes 
of the population from which the early settlers had 
their origin. It 1s for this reason that we find in the 
architecture and furniture of the second and third 
quarters of the seventeenth century in New England 
a survival of the forms and decoration of the late 
Elizabethan and early Jacobean provincial work, 
rather than a reflection of the more sophisticated 
character of the contemporary work of aristocratic or 
metropolitan England. 

The primitive conditions of life rendered utility of 
principal moment to the early settlers in America. 
After the first stages of settlement were past and the 
rough temporary shelters of sod or of wattles were 
replaced by more or less permanent buildings, the 
first characteristic bits of architectural form began to 
appear. These are seen to be survivals of simple 
fifteenth- and sixteenth-century building in England. 
In part they are reminiscent of the small peasant 
cottage and manor house types in the country, one- 
storied, few-roomed, and low to the ground; in part 
they recall the simpler dwellings of the towns, re- 
stricted in area, built high, and with steep roofs above 
overhanging upper stories. The contemporaneous 
erection of both types of house is easily explained 
when we remember that the groups of settlers were 
composed of men from both city and country, each 
accustomed to his own particular kind of building and 
each wishing to reproduce the type with which he was 
familiar, and which was like the home he had left 


behind him. 


Meee felis Oak 4 


No greater carpenters have ever lived than those of 
England, and the tradition of wooden building was 
brought early to this country. The presence of an 
endless supply of wood put the “housewright’s”’ 
methods of construction at a premium, although very 
early in all of the Colonies the manufacture of bricks 
was undertaken. The joinery of the workmen de- 
parted little from that in England and their small 
efforts at decoration consisted of the simpler methods 
in their repertory, such as chamfering, moulding, 
turning, and simple cut-out work. 

In plan, the houses of the colonists were reduced 
versions of the small provincial manor house of Eng- 
land which had centered about the great hall, with 
its screens shutting off the end from which the en- 
trance porch opened. In the lowest reduction of this 
type in America we have the one-roomed cottage 
with the door giving directly into it; next comes the 
plan with the entrance door opening into a small 
entry in which narrow twisting stairs rise and from 
which a door leads to the main room. This plan with 
two rooms placed the entry in the center with the 
chimney behind it serving both rooms. The second 
floor remained an attic. This same plan was suscepti- 
ble of the accommodation of a second story, usually 
slightly overhanging, and of the addition of a long 
narrow ‘‘lean-to” at the rear extending the whole or 
part of the width of the first floor of the house. 

The construction of these houses, if of wood, re- 
peated in its framing the simpler half-timber con- 
struction of Elizabethan times, filled in with wattle 
and daub. This perishable filling was covered with 
wooden clapboards at the behest of weather condi- 
tions. The windows were small and few, single or in 


6 TH EO AME R CAINE WRUNG 


groups, divided by wooden mullions and filled with 
wooden casements with small panes of glass set in 
lead. Many of the houses employed oiled paper in- 
stead of glass. The roofs were steep to shed the snow; 
the chimneys, if of brick, stood high, confessing their 
relation to the stacks of similar English houses. 
Brick chimneys were by no means universal, clay and 
wattles forming a cheap but dangerous method of 
construction. Frequent conflagrations were the re- 
sult, and at various times in all the Colonies ordi- 
nances forbade the use of any but masonry chimneys. 

The interiors showed little attempt to hide their 
construction. The solid corner posts projected into 
the room and supported the girt which broke the 
angle between wall and ceiling. The big summer 
beam ran through the center of the ceiling and the 
smaller cross-beams framed from it into the girts at 
the walls. : 

The slight decoration of these structural members 
was confined chiefly to a chamfering of the summer 
beam and sometimes the girts and posts. The walls 
were sheathed with wood or crudely plastered. In 
many rooms only the fireplace wall was sheathed, the 
vertical boards matched, and their edges moulded. 
The great fireplace with its wooden lintel dominated 
the room, since the windows were few and set high in 
the wall and the door was small. In the entry little 
decoration was attempted except perhaps a set of 
turned balusters and newel, or later on a bit of 
moulded sheathing or joined paneling on the cheek 
of the staircase. 

The local peculiarities of plan, construction, and 
decoration can not, with any degree of surety, be 
considered as indications of a chronological develop- 


MOLAR DE shal gOLOsR a 


ment or as a manifestation of qualities inherent in the 
locality itself. The explanation of such differences, 
and they are numerous, may be discovered in the 
translation to the new land of the various traditions of 
building and its enrichment which were current in 
the different sections of England from which the 
workmen themiselves came. The elaboration of plan, 
too, is due less to any growth in the ability of the 
builder than to the gradual improvement in the eco- 
nomic conditions and standard of living of the colo- 
nists. Remembering that these workmen, most of 
them trained in building at home, had certainly been 
called upon at some time to work on buildings greater 
than any which the Colonies produced, we may sup- 
pose that the comparative poverty of their work here 
was due only to the limited number of tools em- 
ployed, to the absence of financial support, and to the 
simple standards of the Puritan taste. Allowance 
must also be made for the fact that a comparatively 
small number of seventeenth-century houses have 
come down to us. The inventories prove that much 
more pretentious buildings than those still in exts- 
tence were built during the first seventy-five years of 
the Colonies. 

Let us, then, fix in our minds the general picture of 
a typical house of this early period, either a small one- 
storied affair topped by a large chimney, or the taller 
high-gabled pile with overhanging story, decorated 
at the overhang by turned drops or crude brackets, 
such a building as the Parson Capen house at Tops- 
field, Massachusetts (1683), a reproduction of the 
kitchen of which furnishes the proper background for 
some of our mid-seventeenth-century furniture. 

In the interior the low-ceiled rooms, lighted by few 


8 THE A MO ESR 10-4 ON ie Ne 


and small leaded casements or openings filled with 
translucent oiled paper, were dominated by the great 
fireplaces and somewhat enriched by simple wood 
sheathing or paneling. 

Typical of the finer houses of the middle of the 
seventeenth century, the house of Governor Theophi- 
lus Eaton of New Haven may be studied.t Here we 
have what was probably one of the more pretentious 
houses of the time built on an E-shaped plan with 
five chimneys and at least ten rooms. It clearly re- 
calls the simple fifteenth- or sixteenth-century Eng- 
lish manor house plan, with the great hall occupying 
the center and flanked by gabled ells. Most illum1- 
nating as to both the disposition and the furnishing of 
the rooms is the inventory (1657) of Theophilus 
Eaton, a London merchant who accompanied the 
Rev. John Davenport to Boston in 1637, whence they 
migrated the next year and founded what is now New 
Haven. Eaton was selected as one of the “seven 
pillars” to form a government and was chosen Con- 
necticut’s first governor. The rooms named are the 
“greene chamber,” the “blew chamber,” the hall, 
the parlor, Mrs. Eaton’s chamber, the “kitchen 
chamber,” the “other chamber,” the garret, the 
counting house, and the brew house. The kitchen 1s 
thus only indirectly mentioned, but its contents are 
listed in full. 

The contents of the rooms are surprisingly varied. 
All types of furniture of the period are included, 
hangings and upholstery fabrics, needlework, pewter, 


1 Isham and Brown, Early Connecticut Houses, pp. 97-111. Many in- 
teresting Colonial inventories are also to be found in Colonial Furniture 
of New England, Lyon, 1891, The Furniture of Our Forefathers, Single- 
ton, 1900, and Colonial Furniture in America, Lockwood, 1913. 


fetiel Rk. Deby OrOck 9 


silver, brasses and wrought iron, clocks, books, a 
globe and a map, pottery and glass, tapestry and 
Turkey-work.! The inventory of this house, in its 
grouping, wording, and the items which it mentions, 
is very similar to contemporary English inventories, 
and it is one of the most revealing documents on 
early house equipment in the American Colonies. 
The furniture? which went into these American 


1 A home product in imitation of Oriental pile rugs, made by threading 
worsted yarns through a coarse cloth of open texture, then knotting and 
cutting. 

21t is not difficult to point to the elements which relate the early 
American furniture to its European prototypes. More subtle and harder 
to describe are the many slight differences which give to much of the work 
done on this side of the Atlantic its particular character. 

The elements which must be taken into consideration in such an 
analysis are the design, construction, decoration, and materials. In the 
earlier period and in the provincial work of all periods, the design differs 
from similar work abroad in many details. However closely the general 
conception may follow a European prototype, there are variations in 
certain parts due to the lack of models to follow exactly. Certain furni- 
ture forms which fitted closely the needs of the colonists became particu- 
larly popular and these, by reason of frequent reproduction, took on 
much of the expression of the maker. 

In the decoration of the earlier work, the carving and painting are 
cruder, less well finished, and less sophisticated in design than those of 
England of the same time. The mechanical methods of turning and 
moulding play a great part, and elaborately carved pieces are more un- 
usual than abroad. 

In the later periods, the carving, inlay, and veneering of the finer 
work approach and often equal that abroad. Here the use of American 
materials in the piece shows its nationality. 

In all of the furniture, the presence of American materials is an impor- 
tant clue to its provenance. The oak used in seventeenth-century furni- 
ture is lighter in color than the English and is generally quartered. 
American pine—white or yellow, Virginia walnut, local fruit and nut 
woods, and cedar are found in many pieces. Their presence, taken in 
conjunction with the supporting evidences, such as the quality and forms 
of design and decoration or peculiarities of construction found most 
generally in this country, gives an added basis for attribution. 

A comparison of doubtful pieces with others which have been definitely 
authenticated is an assistance. Family or other history is of questionable 
value since it is frequently incorrect, but the general locality from which 
the piece comes will often help to verify or contradict the conclusion 
drawn from internal evidence. 


IO THE AM ERLE CA NAVAS 


houses preserved a distinctive character which har- 
monized well with its setting and which accurately 
expressed the traditions of living held by the owners. 
It is this general character which we wish to empha- 
size, the unifying element of this first period as it 1s 
exemplified in the exhibits on this floor of the wing. 
It is difficult to find a word which will express com- 
pletely this unifying quality. It may best be called 
the work of the Elizabethan tradition. Its distinctive 
character—it can scarcely be called style—arises, 
first of all, from its design, which is based upon a 
definite method of construction and decoration. The 
constructional element which controls the design may 
be described as rectangular, that is, the structural 
elements fit together at right angles. This is true 
both of the joinery of the houses and of the furniture. 
The structural framework is made up of straight 
pieces, vertical or horizontal—except in the gabled 
roof—and such construction is a direct carrying on 
of the traditions of the Gothic ecclesiastical construc- 
tion in furniture and the simple Gothic structure in 
buildings (figs. I-18). 7 
The second element which gives a unified charac- 
ter to the period is the methods of decorative treat- 
ment. These methods are comparatively few in 
number and embrace the partly mechanical devices 
of chamfering, moulding, cutting out to a silhou- 
ette, and turning. In addition to these there is carv- 
ing, but the carving is of a simple type in which there 
is slight effort to modulate between the raised por- 
tion and the background. This carving is not a 
modeled or plastic sort, but one which expresses ale 
most wholly a carpenter’s handiwork, the technique 
of a woodworker uninfluenced by any more elaborate 





CHEST OF OAK, CARVED, WITH STILE AND RAIL PANELING 


PIG. 


i. TOH OE (A ME) RoI: CyAON OW clea 


or sophisticated method. Its motifs are of Gothic 
descent, combined with a very superficially under- 
stood Renaissance element. 

In the material exhibited in the rooms on this floor? 
it will be seen that these methods of construction and 
decoration are preponderant. As the century goes on, 
the detail of the decoration will change in form and 
scale, the carving tend to greater modulation, the 
turning to greater refinement. But so long as the 
general principles of rectangular construction and 
turned or broadly carved decoration outweigh any of 
the more subtle influences which began to arise in the 
last quarter of the century, we have a homogeneous 
group which expresses a very definite artistic point of 
view interpreted by a limited technique. 

The earliest furniture of the period preserves these 
simple methods. The furniture forms themselves are 
few in number. The list would include chests, cup- 
boards, desk-boxes, chairs, stools, forms,” and tables. 
In these we can see our typical methods applied to 
varied problems. The forms of the furniture are also 
of much interest as the basis for other and more 
elaborate pieces of furniture made in later periods. 
Let us take up briefly these chief furniture forms and 
see what variety they offered for adaptation to use, 
what opportunity for decorative treatment. 

The chest was the principal article of furniture, 
since its uses were manifold. A considerable number 
of chests were brought over from England by the 
colonists and served as the models from which those 

1The gift by the late Mrs. Russell Sage in 1909 of the collection of 
furniture of this period long and studiously gathered by the late Eugene 
Bolles of Boston has enabled the visualization of the work of the early 


Colonial cabinet-makers. 
2 Benches. 


NOLLVUOOAd AAITddV GNV SGANUAL SAAAUVD 
YUOMANVUA NO GASIVU LSAHO ‘SUAMVUG AO LSAHO SUAMVUd HLIM LSAHO TZ ‘Ol 





eal To HOB PASM(E Rel CeAIN = iV oae Nee 


made in this country were designed. These chests are 
of the simplest rectangular construction, vertical stiles 
and horizontal rails fitted together to enclose rec- 
tangular panels. The rails and stiles were frequently 
moulded or chamfered. Carving appears on the 
panels and also at times on the stiles and rails. The 
tops are plain with usually a quarter-round moulded 
edge (fies). 


The carving preserves the quality noted above of a 





FIG. <3; DESK-BOX OF OAK, CARVED 


slight attempt at gradation between the background 
and the raised design. Another type of decoration 
also applied to chests is that of bits of wood, cut or 
turned into some symmetrical form—oval, diamond, 
square, or baluster-shaped—split and applied to rails, 
stiles, or panels. This appliqué, definitely reminiscent 
of the so-called “jewels” of Elizabethan work, was 
usually painted black to contrast with the sur- 
rounding surfaces. 

From the simple chest began a development which 
in succeeding periods led far. With the addition ofa 
drawer below the chest proper the piece took on a 
greater usefulness. Eventually two or more drawers 
were added until the chest portion with its hinged lid 
was crowded out entirely and the chest of drawers 


TH IRED® (PLL).O50aR 15 


evolved. The next step was to raise this chest of 
drawers upon a supporting framework and the de- 
velopment of the highboy ' was begun (fig. 2). 

The cupboard is perhaps the piece of furniture 
most characteristic of the seventeenth century since 





FIG. 4. DESK-BOX ON FRAME WHICH LEADS TO THE 
DESK FORM. TURNED AND MOULDED DECORATION 


it was the most popular and certainly the most pre- 
tentious article of the time, and also because its de- 
velopment ceased with its early type. There were 
three variations of the type called, as in England, 
court, livery, and press cupboards. Cupboards stood 
higher than chests, were either rectangular or had 
their sides splayed, and were horizontally divided into 
two parts. Their tops, which were covered with 


1The term highboy is of modern usage. The piece was originally 
called a high chest. 


16 THEO AM. BoR oT ClAIN Wales 


bright-hued cloths of silk damask, velvet, or needle- 
work, afforded space for the display of pewter, silver, 
and pottery. Beneath was a section closed with doors 
for the storage of foods or other materials not prop- 
erly kept in the chests. Below this closed portion was 
a space, in some cases closed with doors, in some cases 





FIG. §. CUPBOARD WITH CARVED DECORATION 


left open, and in a few fitted with drawers. These 
cupboards were decorated with carving, turning, and 
moulding. Frequently heavy posts at the corners 
were turned to baluster forms (figs. 5 and 6). 
Desk-boxes were used to contain writing materials 
and the family Bible, or some other of the few books 
which were read at the time. These are rectangular, 
with flat lids, hinged like the chest at the back, or 


Teh TREDer kr ta0,0 gh 17 


with sloping lids for convenience in writing. They are 
decorated like the chests with carving, turning, or 
painting, and frequently bear initials and dates. 
Many of them are quite finely and delicately embel- 
lished in conformity with their size and intimate 
character (figs. 3 and 4). 





FIG. 6. CUPBOARD WITH TURNED DECORATION 


Chairs, in the first instance, were of three types: 
first, the wainscot chair with solid back; second, the 
open back made up of turned members, vertical and 
horizontal, fitted together; and third, the open back 
made up of curved horizontal slats. The wainscot 
chair (fig. 7), a type brought directly from home, 
preserves the stile and rail construction of the chests 
derived from the high-backed Gothic seats of eccle- 


18 TH E.o/ASM EB RoPClA Ni OW Let 


siastical use. Its legs are turned and braced with 
stretchers, its arms crudely cut to a curve, its back 
paneled, and its upper rail sometimes cut out to a 
silhouetted design and carved. Some of these chairs 
are decorated more or less elaborately on the panels, 
the stiles, and the rails of the back. This type of 
chair is, like the cupboard, characteristic of the 
seventeenth century, for its use is confined to that 
time and no future development resulted from it. 

The two other types of chairs (figs. 8 and 9), 
the slat-back type and the turned-spindle type, both 
srew out of the heavy English form in which the 
short turned spindles were held between curved slats. 
These two groups preserve the rectangular construc- 
tion—straight back- and front-posts; the arms, when 
they occur, carrying between the two. The tops of 
the back-posts are finished with a turned finial, often 
beautifully designed. Between the back-posts are 
fitted the slats, which vary in width and in the best 
examples curve slightly in their top line. With the 
spindle type the upper and lower spindles fit into the 
back-posts and the vertical spindles are set between 
these two. Of the slat backs there is a variety of 
turning for the tops of the back-posts, and the arm- 
posts are frequently finished with broad mushroom- 
shaped knobs. There are many varieties of the 
turned-spindle chairs, the best known and most dis- 
tinctive of which are the so-called Carver and Brew- 
ster chairs. 

These two sorts of chairs run well into the succeed- 
ing period; in fact, in provincial districts they have 
continued almost up to modern times, the Windsor 
chair being an outgrowth of the turned-spindle type. 
Their proportions and their details vary somewhat 





FIG. 7. WAINSCOT CHAIR 
SHOWING JACOBEAN INFLUENCE, CARVED AND 
TURNED DECORATION 


20 "tT Hee A UMVCE-RV CCAUN] WwW aengG 


but in general the types remain unchanged. In many 
houses the seats of rush or splints were softened by 
the use of pads covered with gay materials, velvets 
and damasks of red, blue, or green, adding a brilliant 
color note to the furnishing. 

In the earliest homes stools (fig. 12) were more 
common than chairs, since until well along in the 
sixteenth century chairs were in the nature of luxuries 
even in well-to-do English houses and a certain for- 
mality was associated with their use. Stools had 
turned legs, joined at the top into a narrow skirting 
and strengthened below by stretchers. The legs were 
set at a rake in the best examples to lend greater sta- 
bility. Occasionally carving was attempted on the 
skirting, but usually this skirt was moulded and no 
other decoration was attempted except the charac- 
teristic turnings of the legs. The tops were of solid 
wood with a slight rounded moulding at the edge. 
Cushions of bright fabrics, sometimes fringed, were 
used with the stools. 

Benjamin Franklin writes of how his great-grand- 
father, in the old country, kept the family Bible 
strapped open in the space under the seat of a joint 
stool. He would turn up the stool and read, one of the 
children standing guard at the door to warn of the 
approach of an unwelcome visit from the king’s au- 
thorities. 

Forms, as the long benches were called, partook of 
the same design and character as the stools, and were 
cushioned in the same manner. 

Of tables there were several types. The most 
primitive is the trestle table (fig. 13), which consists of 
a loose top resting upon two or more trestles joined 
together by a brace. The vertical shaft of the trestle 


UYWIVHO AdAL ATANIdS 
GaAUAAOO-UAHLVAT “OI “Old MIVHO UAAUVO °6 “OI WIVHO MOVA-LVIS °8 “OM 







vats THE ASME ROC ASN eWoIleG 


might be turned or chamfered. The brace was plain 
and pegged into place. ‘The more elaborate examples 
of trestle tables have turned balusters resting upon 
the brace and giving considerable decorative quality 
to the piece. 

Another sort is the rectangular table with four legs 
turned to typical profiles, stretchers, and a skirting, 
the angle between legs and skirt sometimes filled with 
a bit of fretwork (fig. 16). These tables were made in 
both square and oblong shapes, the legs turned ined 
variety of ways, the skirt either plain or moulded 
(fig. 17). 

The gate-leg ! table (fig. 15) also finds a beginning 
with this early furniture although its general use dates 
late in the period. The gate-leg type, when closed, 
consists of a long narrow table with large drop-leaves 
which, when raised, are supported upon so-called 
“sates” pivoted to the main portion. When the table 
is closed the floor space covered is very small in pro- 
portion to the size of the table when opened, and this 
practical necessity of saving space was important in 
the small rooms of the houses, which were crowded 
with large furniture. Of these tables the shapes of the 
tops when the leaves are raised are round or oval, 
square or oblong. The legs are turned to typical 
designs and little other decoration occurs except an 
occasional cutting out of the skirting at the ends. 

A variation of the gate-leg table is the so-called 
butterfly ! table (fig. 14), in which instead of a “gate” 
a flap, pivoted vertically, supports the drop-leaf in 
place. The usual curved shape of this flap gives the 
name to the type. 


1A modern name for this type. 


j 
2 
a4 





CHAIR WITH ORIGINAL TURKEY- 
WORK AND NAILS 


HIGae ls 


24 TiH EO CAME RICAN So Welenas 


The chair-table was another piece whose popu- 
larity resulted from the necessity for economy of 
space. Here the heavy chair, closely related to the 
wainscot chair in its structure, is fitted with a tall 
back, pivoted at the point where the arms join the 
back-posts. The back could thus be swung forward 
and down and, resting on the arms, form the top Sie 
table, which might be any of the usual table shapes. 

These, then, are the chief furniture forms of the 
earliest period, and from them developed practically 
all of those elaborated pieces which a more sophis- 
ticated taste demanded in later times. 

The preponderant wood of this period is oak, but 
it was combined frequently with pine and other soft 
woods where too great wear was not required. Oak, 
ash, hickory, chestnut, maple, acacia, whitewood, 
and red cedar are all employed, as in fact any local 
wood whose qualities rendered it of service. 

The Gothic tradition is carried on in another detail, 
the custom of frequently painting or staining the 
furniture black and a bright brick red. These colors 
were used to emphasize the rather flat carving or to 
bring out mouldings on chests and drawer fronts. 
Some few pieces were painted with designs on a dark 
background. 

Closely connected with the furniture and forming 
one of the most important elements in the decorative 
effect of the interiors of the earliest days was the use 
of colored textiles. The textile industry in its be- 
ginnings in America was largely confined to materials 
spun and woven by Colonial women for purely utili- 
tarian purposes, or “wrought” in their leisure hours 
in stitches and designs with which they had been 
familiar at home. A study of seventeenth- and early 


fie linl REDS FLO OLR 25 


eighteenth-century inventories and eighteenth-cen- 
tury newspapers and contemporary descriptions of 
early homes shows that many of the same rich 
fabrics used in the houses of England came to Amer- 
ica in considerable quantities. 

We have noted the use of cupboard-cloths, chair- 
pads, and stool-cushions of bright hue and rich ma- 





FIG. 12. STOOLS WITH TURNED LEGS AND PLAIN 
STRETCHERS, ONE WITH MOULDED SKIRT 


terials. In addition to these there were table carpets 
and curtains for beds and windows, both woven and 
wrought. | 

Turkey-work is noted as in general use from 1646 
for cushions and furniture coverings. That doughty 
old settler, Major-General Edward Gibbons, English . 
by descent—merchant of Boston in 1629, major- 
general of militia 1649-51, and described by Johnson 
(1654) in his Wonder-Working Providence of Sions 
Saviour in New England as “‘a man of resolute spirit, 
bold as a Lion, being wholly tutored up in N. E. 
Discipline, very generous and forward to promote all 
military matters; his Forts are well contrived, and 


26 THE AMERICAN? WINGS 


batteries strong, and in good repair”—left behind 
him in 1654 thirty-one cushions, of which eleven were 
window cushions, four damask, four velvet, two 
leather, and one Turkey-work. “Raught” window 
cushions, which appear from 1653 on, were unques- 
tionably of the so-called Charles II needlework. 
Anne Hibbins, the third person executed for witch- 
craft (1656) during that strange psychological wave 
which at frequent intervals swept New England for 
over half a century, widow of a successful Boston mer- 
chant who had long been a deputy to the General 
Court and was assistant at the hour of his death, 
beautified her home with ‘‘a green say * cushion, a 
violet pinckt cushion, a velvet (10s) and a wrought 
cushion with gold (5s), a wrought cupboard cloth, a 
green say valance, a green cupboard cloth with silk 
fringe, a green wrought do. with do., one wrought 
valliants, five painted calico curtains and valence, 
one cupboard cloth with fringe, and one wrought 
Holland cupboard cloth.” The painted calico cur- 
tains referred to are those gorgeous fabrics from 
India, painted with the design of the tree of life, with 
its brilliant foliage and many-colored birds, a design 
which, copied by the Portuguese and English textile 
manufacturers, had great vogue in Europe and 
America during the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 
turies.. It is an interesting thought that Mistress 
Anne Hibbins was able to procure for the bed hang- 
ings of her Boston home painted calico, unquestion- 
ably of design and quality similar to that noted seven 
years later by Pepys in his Diary in 1663: “Bought 
my wife a chint, that is a painted Indian calico, for to 


1A cloth of fine texture, resembling serge; in the sixteenth century 
sometimes partly of silk, subsequently entirely of wool. 


dare R De iO OLR ay 


line her new study.” Similar calico serves as a cover- 
ing in one of the seventeenth-century rooms. 
Inventories of early New Englanders such as these, 
of which many exist, give us ample authority for 
the use in our seventeenth-century rooms and top 
floor gallery of seventeen th-century velvets, damasks, 
plushes, camlets, and fabrics of the Orient for hang- 
ings and chair, table, chest, and cupboard coverings 
as a proper accompaniment to the superb seven- 
teenth-century furniture of the Bolles Collection, 





FIG. 13. TRESTLE TABLE OF PINE AND OAK 


largely the product of New England cabinet-makers. 

It must not be supposed that the effort of the time 
was to decorate consciously or to achieve studied 
effects. Such decoration was purely an expression of 
the human love of color and comfort, a psychological 
demand for pleasant surroundings in daily life which 
was unaffected and sincere. It gave to the colonists 
in their new home some reminiscent feeling of the 
homes which they had left behind them. 

The parlor of Thomas Gregson at New Haven 
(who was lost on the “‘Great Ship” in 1646) contained 
among other things two tables, one cupboard and 
cloth, one carpet (for table), eight chairs with four 
green cushions and thirteen stools, four window cush- 
ions, and ten curtains, a record which evidences a 


28 THE) AMGE’R TbCoAGN Wels 


somewhat crowded condition. The inventory of 
William Wardell (1670) mentions two stools with silk 
fringe and five green wrought cushions. : Jacob De 
Lange, a surgeon of early New York, had (1685) 
twelve chairs of red and six of green plush. Margha- 
rita Wan Varick (1696), the Long Island minister’s 
widow, whose china is mentioned on p. 38, had six 
satin cushions with gold flowers. 

The use of window curtains was not confined to 
important houses, as is shown by many inventories 
of similar nature; for example, that of Philip Ment- 
horn, a wheelwright in New York, which includes 
(1728) “four callico window curtains and vallins and 
callico chimney cloath, one suit of Flowered curtains, 
and Vallins” and “Four Linnen curtains and Two 
Linnen window Vallins”’ in the bedroom. The ruffled 
chimney cloth was usual in homes about New York, 
where the Dutch tradition was strong. 

By the last quarter of the seventeenth century the 
use of fine textiles warranted, at least in the cities, the 
establishment of upholsterers’ shops. Four of these 
‘n Boston were owned by Ebenezer Savage (1682), 
John Wolfender, Alexander More (1683), and Joseph 
Just (1688). 

Leather also played a goodly part in the uphol- 
sterer’s trade. Certain simply constructed chairs, 
with or without arms and slightly decorated with 
turning, were covered on seat and back with colored 
or natural tanned leather held in place by large- 
headed tacks. In the parlor of Capt. William Tinge 
in 1653 stood “eight red leathered back chairs and 
two low leather back stools” while in the 1654 inven- 
tory of Major-General Gibbons were included “‘seven 
leather and one green chair.” 





FIG. 14. BUTTERFLY TABLE 





FIG. I$. GATE-LEG TABLE OF THE TRESTLE TYPE 


30 THE) GAME Ro CoA SyyiaiaNe 


Next to gay upholstery in the early houses, the 
metalwork formed the most important adjunct to the 
decorative scheme. From very early in the settle- 
ments silver, pewter, brass, and ironwork are men- 
tioned in inventories, often in considerable quantity, 
although but a small proportion of these has come 
down to us. 

At a time when banks were lacking to safeguard 
precious metal, much of the silver possessed by colo- 
nists was made up into utensils of beauty and useful- 
ness which could at need be melted down for other 
purposes. The rapid increase of wealth after the first 
pioneer years brought much of the precious metal into 
the Colonies. When we recall that by the third quar- 
ter of the seventeenth century practically the whole 
of the eastern seaboard had been settled to varying 
depths into the interior, that a population of over 
seventy thousand people was busily engaged in agri- 
culture, manufacturing, or commerce, and that there 
was a constant traffic over the high seas with many 
parts of the world, it is little wonder that wealth in- 
creased surprisingly. 

By 1676 there were seven hundred and thirty Mas- 
sachusetts ships. Of these very many traded with 
Europe and the West Indies. In 1675 an English 
visitor to Massachusetts wrote, “The merchants 
seem to be rich men and their houses as handsomely 
furnished as those in London.” Thus, with this 
industrious activity and far-flung commerce, the 
stream of silver was turned in the direction of 
America where in exchange many of the staple 
products for European nations were to be had in 
large quantities. 

The comparative simplicity of the standards of 
living as compared with those of the aristocratic 





FIG. 16. RECTANGULAR TABLE WITH TURNED 
DECORATION 





FIG, 17. RECTANGULAR TABLE WITH TURNED 
DECORATION 


32 Tul Rh. AuM EUR TC AING (Weis 


classes in England accounts for the absence of the 
very elaborate plate which is contemporary in Eng- 
land, yet in the design and workmanship of such silver 
as the Colonies produced is set an artistic standard 
higher than is exhibited in either the contemporary 
furniture or architecture. 

The silversmith, who handled this precious ma- 
terial, soon came to hold a very high place in all com- 
munities. His contact with the most valuable me- 
dium of exchange put him in a position of trust which 
often led him to hold office as town treasurer or other 
responsible positions. His training at home had given 
him a technical skill which far surpassed that of other 
craftsmen. Hence, throughout all the Colonial era, 
the names of silversmiths loom large in civil and 
patriotic affairs. 

Such men as John Hull and Robert Sanderson (a 
caudle-cup bearing their mark is exhibited on this 
floor) are typical of the group of silversmiths whose 
integrity gave them positions of responsibility. Ap- 
pointed mint-master in Boston in 1652, Hull chose 
his friend Sanderson as his partner and for thirty 
years these two coined silver, mainly for local circu- 
lation. Their. first coins—a shilling and a six-penny 
piece—were the first silver currency made in this 
country. Examples of these are in the Clearwater 
Collection of American silver. ' 

Drinking-vessels formed the chief group of silver 
utensils in both New England and New Netherland. 
Tankards, mugs, and caudle-cups were the most usual 
forms for domestic use, while for church service there 


For a full treatment of the silver see American Silver of the Seven- 
teenth and Eighteenth Centuries in the Clearwater Collection, by C. 
Louise Avery. 


Teese Reb aro Oem oe 


were beakers and baptismal basins. For the design 
of these pieces, the contemporary English plate 
formed the basis, simplified in decoration. The 
tankards are straight-sided, in the form of a trun- 
cated cone, with flat, serrated lids and high thumb- 
pieces. There is some slight decoration about the 
base, on the handle, and on the thumb-piece of the 
lids. The caudle-cups, two-handled, followed the 





FIG. 18. CRADLE, OF STILE AND RAIL CONSTRUCTION 
MOULDED DECORATION 


bulbous form of the English types, while the mugs, 
usually straight-sided, resembled in general form the 
tankards. The beaker (figs. 29 and 32), also straight- 
sided, flaring, and decorated at the base, occurred 
both in domestic and sacramental use, partaking 
largely of the solid Dutch quality which it early had 
assumed. 

In the decoration of all of these we find a preference 
for those simple means which characterized that of 
the furniture. Good mouldings were employed in 
almost every case, and the modeling of the pieces is, 


34 POH EB. AM BRL CA Nee Wee Nie 


with very few exceptions, approached from the point 
of view of one familiar with turning as a method of 
work. The baluster profiles of the standing cups 
actually reproduce the turned detail of contemporary 
furniture. A certain amount of simple repoussé was 
attempted, usually consisting of an incised outline, 
the figures slightly modeled within this outline. 
Small cast details which reflect the individuality of 
each Colonial silversmith were also occasionally em- 
ployed. Some engraving, too, appears but itis usually 
simple in design and somewhat crudely done, al- 
though among the silversmiths at an early date were 
men trained to use the engraver’s tools. 

Silver of this period is excessively rare today. Much 
of it was melted and remelted in the centuries be- 
tween, and much of the domestic plate which 1s left 
to us has been preserved through its inheritance by 
church organizations for sacramental use, or from a 
few families where individual pieces have been cher- 
ished. The inventories, however, give some clue to 
the amount of silver possessed by seventeenth-cen- 
tury families—sometimes no inconsiderable amount. 
Governor Eaton’s inventory included plate valued at 
Tio tls 

Pewter, that soft-hued alloy of tin and copper, long 
used as a substitute for silver, played an important 
part in Colonial seventeenth-century furnishings. At 
this time it was largely imported from England, since 
its modest value, appraised in inventories at from 
three to eleven pence per pound, furnished no stimu- 
lus for local manufacture, nor did economic reasons 
for its preservation hold as they did in the case of 
silver. Almost no traces exist of the few pewterers 
who worked here, and their handiwork has almost 


daria ko Fe leO.OLR 35 


entirely disappeared. The softness of the metal and 
its lack of resistance to heat account for its disappear- 
ance into the junk heap. The New England inven- 
tories, however, mention it in astonishing quantities. 
That of Theophilus Eaton (1657), quoted above, in- 
cludes two hundred and fifty-three pounds of pewter 
utensils. It is rather remarkable that so much pewter 
was mentioned in early Colonial inventories, as Sam- 
uel Pepys in his diary, October 29, 1663, in an account 
of the dinner at the Guildhall on Lord Mayor’s Day 
notes, “It was very unpleasing that we had no nap- 
kins, nor change of trenchers, and drank out of 
earthen pitchers and wooden dishes.” 

The list (1681) of the estate of Henry Silvester of 
Shelter Island, L. I., mentions two hundred and 
eighty pounds of pewter valued at £14, and the in- 
ventory (1678) of the store owned by Col. Francis 
Epes of Henrico County, Virginia, includes among 
other articles in stock pewter salts, candlesticks, 
tankards, and spoons. 

The great quantity of wrought-iron utensils for 
kitchen use is witnessed in almost every inventory. 
In the Eaton list of 1657 there were numerous and- 
irons and fire-dogs, a cast-iron fireback, firepan, tongs, 
poker, and the complete equipment for many fire- 
_ places. There is listed one pair of “great brass and- 
irons,” which were probably used in the hall in con- 
junction with the smaller “doggs” which held the 
backlog in place. Earlier still, 1650, Capt. Tinge of 
Boston had “‘a great pair of brass andirons and a pair 
of carved bellows” valued at £3.10. Governor 
Goodyear of New Haven in 1658 had andirons of 
brass, while Sir William Phipps in 1696 had two pairs. 


We learn from this that not only wrought iron but 


36 THE AMERICAN WING 


fine brasses, probably imported, were used quite early 
and lent a sparkle and brilliance to already gay in- 
teriors. 

Of brass and of iron were the primitive lights of the 
period. The so-called betty-lamp preserves a form 
which goes back at least to Roman days, if not ear- 
lier. These betty-lamps, low pear-shaped dishes, 
with a spout-like projection at one end and a raised 
handle at the other, were filled with oil or tallow 
from which the wick extended over the spout. To the 
handle was attached a jointed rod of varying lengths, 
fitted sometimes at its end with a spike pointing 
downward. This could be stuck into a projecting 
shelf or beam and the light suspended. Rush lights, 
too, were used, the rushes set in a metal holder (fig. 
1g). 

Candlesticks are noted, but until late in the cen- 
tury candles were in the nature of a luxury and were 
employed only on special occasions. The interiors 
would thus seem to have been but dimly lighted at 
night, but the customs of the country presupposed an 
early bedtime and daylight sufficed for most activi- 
ties. 

The survival in the American Colonies of the use of 
armor such as was customary at home is not surpris- 
ing, but very little of it has been preserved. In most 
houses there was an adequate equipment of firearms, 
both for hunting and for defense. The companies of 
militia were fitted with body armor, following in its 
form the English contemporary types. Examples of 
Cromwellian armor and a group of American-made 
halberds in the main gallery suggest the general types 
and character. We have the record (1654) of Major- 


General Gibbons leaving, in addition to a number of 


Petia RD FU OCO UR. ne 


firearms such as muskets, pistols, arquebuses, a cross- 
bow and a long bow, a poleaxe and a pike, sixteen 
pieces of armor and one “‘complete corselet.”” Such 
armor, kept in condition and ready for use, unwit- 
tingly played some part in the unconscious decorative 
effect, reflecting in polished surfaces the light and 
color of the rooms. Records evidence the existence of 





FIG. 19. BETTY-LAMP AND RUSH-LIGHT 
HOLDER OF WROUGHT IRON 


-armor-making on an extensive scale in Hartford, 
Connecticut, at the end of the seventeenth century. 

Unquestionably in the earliest days, probably well 
through the first half-century of colonization, wooden 
trenchers, platters, bowls, and mugs were the general 
rule upon the New England dining tables. At a 
comparatively early date, however, we find consider- 
able use of pewter, silver, and pottery; and as the 
years go on a great deal of pottery, generally im- 
ported and of the common types used in England of 
the time, made its appearance. 

Some of the early slipwares of Staffordshire, which 
reflected the Elizabethan tradition as surely as did 


38 THE AMERICAN W1NG 


the architecture and furniture, were brought over 
from England. Examples of the type are shown on 
this foor and others may be examined in the collec- 
tion of English pottery. Inventories of “whit cups” 
(1646), ‘‘six small blue dishes” (1651), “ ten pieces of 
white earthen dishes” (1659), and “Dutch Earthen 
platters”’ (1661) indicate that the white and the blue 
and white faience of Holland, later copied in England, 
had a certain utilitarian vogue in the northern col- 
onies. In 1657, there are mentioned as belonging to 
Governor Theophilus Eaton “5 earthen pots and Io 
earthen dishes” and a “‘cheny basin,” as well as “a 
box of to trenchers”’ (wooden). 

Aside from these early potteries, stoneware or tin- 
glazed, there 1s every indication that, particularly in 
New York, there were acquired by the colonists many 
of the K’ang-hsi porcelains which were first brought 
into Holland by the Dutch East India Company and 
thence exported to America. 

The inventory of Cornelis Steenwyck, mayor of 
New York (1668-1670), who died in 1685, shows that 
in the “‘Great Chamber were nineteen porcelain 
dishes and two flowered earthen pots.” Margharita 
Van Varick, the widow of the minister of the Re- 
formed Dutch Congregation on Long Island, left be- 
hind her (1695), ““Three East India cups, three East 
India dishes, three Cheenie pots, one Cheenie pot 
bound in silver, two glassen cases with thirty nine 
pieces of small china ware, eleven India babyes”’ and 
one hundred and twenty-six pieces of various kinds of 
chinaware, bowls, jugs, flower-pots, toys, and images. 
Other inventories indicate that the possession of a 
hundred pieces of pottery and porcelain was not un- 
common for a seventeenth-century New York burgher. 


fee tiie Rb) be TOO ae 39 


Groups of ceramics, therefore, contributed their 
share to the ensemble, the dull grays, browns, and 
reds of the slipware contrasting pleasantly with the 
lighter and gayer Delft and the more fragile porcelain 
from the Orient. 

Glassware, too, was by no means unknown, and 
was imported in large quantities. At quite early dates 
we find such items as “‘a case of bottles” in the in- 
ventory of Ephraim Hunt of Windsor, Connecticut 
(1644), “a case and seaven glasses” from the inven- 
tory of Joseph How, Lynn, Massachusetts (1651), 
and “a case of bottles with a glasse in it,”’ owned by 
that sturdy old warrior, Major-General Edward Gib- 
bons, in 1654. Such glassware, undoubtedly imported 
from England, may be seen in a group in the main 
gallery. 

From all this it will be seen that before the first half. 
century of colonization had passed, in fact before the 
great Puritan immigration was over, the American 
colonists up and down the seaboard were well 
equipped with most of the necessities and many of 
‘the luxuries of comfortable living. Their houses were 
cosy and pleasant, their rooms furnished cheerfully, 
and their taste was attuned to an appreciation of 
beauty in textiles, metalwork, glass, and pottery. 
All of these created a domestic interior reminiscent 
to a surprising degree of the English or Dutch homes 
from which the settlers of New England and New 
Amsterdam came. 


Toward the end of the first fifty years of coloniza- 
tion, there began to be felt here certain foreign influ- 
ences, both continental and Oriental, which had 
found their way into England during the preceding 


40 TH EA Mib BIC AGN iw ee 


age of exploration and discovery. With the introduc- 
tion of these new elements comes a change in the 
general aspect of the furniture as well as of the archi- 
tecture. Although the furniture, at least, preserves 
the structure, form, and decoration which have been 
outlined above, it shows a slightly increased sophistt- 
cation both of decoration and of design, followed by a 





FIG. 20. LOWBOY VENEERED 
IN BURLED WOOD 


certain refinement in scale and in craftsmanship. 
The vocabulary of detail was increased and a few new 
materials were introduced. | 

This change, which came in the last twenty years 
of the seventeenth century, was the first step in a 
transition toward the full sophistication of the 
eighteenth. Its effect upon architecture was at first 
not very noticeable. A few attempts at stile and rail 
paneling are its chief signs on the interiors of early 
houses. By the first quarter of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, however, the change had become very marked. 


PHP IERS Dy PP iVO0Q, RB 4I 


A carefully ordered planning of houses with a central 
hall running through, featuring the stairway, begins 
to be the rule in the better buildings. Walls with 
beveled panels and bolection-mouldings followed 





FT Geen? Are WALNUT HIGHBOY. AMshs: 

TURNED LEGS AND CURVED STRETCHERS 

SHOW THE INTRODUCTION OF CONTI- 
NENTAL EUROPEAN INFLUENCES 


those which in the time of William and Mary were 
fashionable in England. The fireplace, no longer used 
only for cooking, was reduced in size and surrounded 
with a bold bolection-moulding. The stud is higher 
and the heavy beams are often covered by a plastered 
ceiling; cornices appear in rooms and the higher ceil- 


42 TH Eo ACM. ER DT OVAGgN Wale 


ings give greater dignity. This is true of the finer 
houses, many of the small houses in rural communi- 
ties continuing the old methods. 

On the exterior of the houses the change is strongly 
marked. The earlier houses in the late Gothic tradi- 
tion had emphasized the vertical dimension with 
high-pitched roofs and chimney stacks. The walls 
were carried up to form gables for windows which 
lighted the attic story. The window spacing was not 
necessarily symmetrical, and the windows themselves 
when grouped were mullioned and fitted with case- 
ments. 

With the new type we have the influence of the 
ordered architectural study of the Renaissance. This 
laid an emphasis upon the horizontal rather than the 
vertical, and was carried out in the houses by having 
the projecting cornices break the line between the 
wall and roof, the rows of windows symmetrically ar- 
ranged and regularly spaced, and, in brick houses, by 
the projecting band course marking the second-story 
level. The windows assume a different form, the 
opening unbroken by mullions and filled with sash, 
sliding up and down, with wooden divisions between 
the glass panes. 

The planning and the design of the elevations have 
become a matter of more careful study than hereto- 
fore, and much of the reasoned order of classical and 
Renaissance architectural design is seen in the result- 
ing building. Houses of this type are pictured in the 
monumental “South Prospect of Ye Flourishing ite 
of New York in the Province of New Yorkin America” 
(1721) and the “‘ Prospect of Charles Town”’ (c. 1737) 
hung at the head of the Staircase. | . 

To return to the furniture, let us note the changes 


Teg Pe Re raona 43 


which came about through the introduction of foreign 
influences which reached America by way of England 
in the last quarter of the seventeenth century. Of the 
main furniture forms of the earlier time the court 
cupboard and the wainscot chair practically disap- 
pear and the form or bench is little used. The chest 





FIG. 22. DESK VENEERED IN 
FIGURED WOODS 


appears in two variations, the chest of drawers and 
the highboy (fig. 21). The lowboy! is created to 
match the highboy, and falls into the group of tables. 
The desk-box has followed the example of the chest 
and, first acquiring drawers below the box, has been 
raised on a supporting framework and become the 
desk much as we know it today (fig. 22). Chairs of 
considerable variety are perhaps more affected by the 
changed style than any other of the furniture forms. 


1A modern word. 


A4 THE ‘AME RI CAO Sys 


Turning and carving still remain the principal 
methods of decoration and the construction con- 
tinues the tradition of rectangular joinery. The carv- 
ing and turning have become more delicate and more 
subtly modeled, the carving approaching nearer to a 
plastic effect, possessing gentler gradations of sur- 
faces and a finer finish than the earlier type, the 
turning following more elaborate and more carefully 
studied profiles, fine in scale. While the structure 
actually remains rectangular, a number of curves 
begin to appear in skirtings of highboys, lowboys, and 
tables which eventually lead into the next step of 
curved structural members (figs. 21 and 25). 

Under William and Mary had come into England a 
number of Flemish details. These are reflected both 
in the carving and in the turning of the furniture in 
America. In chairs particularly, elaboration was at- 
tempted and carved and openwork cresting and front 
stretchers give a decided richness. The so-called 
Flemish scroll forms the basis for the carved designs 
(figs. 25 and 26). Through Portugal from the Orient 
came the use of cane for chair seats and backs, and 
many caned chairs date from this period—a splat 
made up of cane between two wooden supports being 
the usual form (figs. 25 and 26). Another variation of 
this, and a typically American one, is the banister- 
back chair (figs. 23 and 24). Here, instead of a caned 
splat, the back 1s filled with split turned balusters, 
the flat side toward the front. The Flemish foot—a 
flattened S scroll—appears on chairs, while the so- 
called Spanish foot (fig. 24) is used in conjunction 
with turned detail on legs of chairs and tables. 

The turnings of legs of tables, highboys, and low- 


boys is a variation of a vase or baluster form, usually 





YIVHO-ACIS Ladd HSINVdS HLIM UYIVHO-ddIs 


MOVE-ANVO ‘St ‘ora WIVHOWAV MOVA-UALSINVA ‘FT ‘OTs MOVA-UALSINVA °LT ‘Ola 


: 
{ 





46 THE AMERICAN WING 


tapering toward the bottom. One of the best-known 
types is the cup turning, another the bell turning, a 
third the trumpet turning, each so called from its 
similarity to the article named. Below the cup or 
bell the vase motif appears, often simplified into an 
inverted cone. Another form of leg, popular under 
William and Mary in England and frequently found 
in America, has the vase portion hexagonal or octag- 
onal in section. Stretchers on such furniture as this 
are usually curved in studied arrangement. 

Another and very marked innovation is the em- 
ployment of veneers of figured woods on the case fur- 
niture, that is to say, furniture fitted with drawers 
(figs. 20 and 22). Walnut, burl or crotch, butternut, 
and other woods whose grain and figure are decora- 
tive elements in themselves, were used to enrich 
drawer fronts, desk fronts, and table tops. These 
veneers were usually outlined by bandings of con- 
trasting woods. 

The change which came over the furniture at the 
end of the seventeenth century is thus seen to be 
considerable. It marks an effort in the evolution of 
conscious styles which in the next period is developed 
to the full. The basic principle of construction and 
decoration remains unchanged, marking a survival of 
the earliest English traditions of joinery, but the 
improvement in craftsmanship and the refinement of 
decoration are in line with the higher standards of 
artistic accomplishment which came into England 
with the influx of French and other foreign workmen 
at the end of the seventeenth century, and which were 
prompt to affect American work, since numbers of 
English workmen were coming over year by year. 

By the end of the first quarter of the eighteenth 


ppl eh are hte On A’7 


century, the effects of new stylistic influences of a 
different character were being felt, but in the pro- 
vincial districts the older mode continued. Thus we 
find an overlapping of style between 1720 and 1740 
which is confusing only when taken in strict chrono- 
logical order. The impulse behind the design of each 
is distinctly different, and if they are judged from 
this aspect no confusion will arise. 





FIG. 26. COUCH SHOWING USE OF FLEMISH 
SCROLLS IN CARVING 


It is furniture of this earlier spirit which 1s shown 
in the third floor gallery, furniture of rectangular 
construction, decorated with carving, turning, or 
moulding, later with veneers. It runs through a de- 
velopment from the heavy large-scale pieces of Eliza- 
bethan tradition to the more delicate and sophisti- 
cated work which followed the fashion popular at the 
time of William and Mary. The materials include 
many local woods, finer in grain than the oak, ash, 
and hickory of the earlier day. Fruit woods, nut 
woods, maple, and a large group of woods locally 


48 THE AMERICAN WING 


abundant appear in parts of many pieces. Certain of 
the chairs were painted with lamp-black, and the 
chests of drawers were so treated where the poorer 
woods were used. The imitation of Oriental lacquer 
which had found a place in England during the reign 
of Charles II was echoed in America by painted chests 
of various types where flowing designs in red, yellow, 
and white ramble over a black surface. Some lacquer 
work was done here, as the Boston News Letter of 
August 31, 1719, told its readers | aes There is 
likewise Japan-work of all Sorts done and Sold, and 
Old Looking-glasses are new Quicksilver’d at the 
Place above said by William Randle.” 

Clocks were luxuries, but not uncommon in the 
seventeenth century. One owned by Abraham Shaw 
(1638) of Dedham, was valued at 18 shillings and 
“one clock and case in Ye Great Parlour” of the Rev. 
John Cotton (see page 71) was inventoried at £6. 
The latter was of a kind driven by a spring and stood 
on cupboards, chests, or tables. More common were 
those in which the propelling force was obtained from 
weights as in the one hanging on the wall of our 
seventeenth-century-room. The older clocks had no 
pendulums, but a balance controlled the movement. 
Tall clocks did not appear until late in the century. 
Most of them were of English manufacture though 
William Davis is listed as a clockmaker in Boston in 
1683. 

In the early part of the next century clockmakers 
came from abroad to ply their trade. One of these 
thus advertised in the Boston News Letter of October 
6, 1707, “This is to give Notice to all gentlemen and 
others, that there is lately arrived in Boston from 


London by way of Pensilvania a Clock Maker. If 


SHG SOdT 
ATOINAVO AO ASN ATAVA NV GAaNYAL AGNV Ladi HSINVdS 
HLIM UWIVHO-ACIS °*8d “Old HLIM YWIVHOWAV “Lt “Ola 


ONLLSAUD GAAUNS ANV LVIdS GITOS AHL JO NOILONGOULNI AHL ONIMOHS SUIVHO 





50 Eada ES ROL AGN a Vie ee 


any person or persons hath any occasion for New 
Clocks; or, to have old Ones turn’d into Pendulums; 
or anything either in making or mending: Let them 
repair to the Sign of the Clock Dial at the South Side 
of the Town-House in Boston, where they may have 
them done at reasonable rates. Per James Batter- 
son.” An advertisement along similar lines by Isaac 
Webb appeared the following year. John Brand from 
London set up a clock business in Boston in 1712, and 
was followed in the same year by Thomas Bradley 
and Joseph Essex who advertised “jo hr. clocks, 
week clocks, month clocks, spring table clocks, chime 
clocks, quarter clocks, quarter chime clocks, church 
clocks, Terret clocks.”’ 

By this time, as we have seen, the communication 
between America and Europe was continuous, the 
accumulation of wealth in the Colonies was marked, 
and the resulting inflow of imported accessories for 
household furnishing, as shown by records of the time, 
was very great. The first generation of colonists had 
been gathered to their fathers and the later genera- 
tions, developing under conditions less arduous than 
their predecessors had known, evolved a very well- 
regulated and pleasant domestic and social life. 
Particularly along the seaboard, where the hard life 
of the frontiersman was not known and where rich 
merchants set a high standard of living, the comforts 
and luxuries of household appointments were rather 
the rule than the exception. 

The increased luxury of living in the early eigh- 
teenth century is witnessed in the following descrip- 
tion of the town of Boston contained in The History 


of New England, by David Neal (London 1720): 


“The Conversation of this Town is as polite as in most of the 


eto Ro Des LPO Oak: a 


Cities and Towns of England; many of their Merchants having 
travell’d into Europe; and those that stay at home, having the 
Advantage of a free Education with Travellers; so that a gentle- 
man from London could almost think himself at home in Boston, 
when he observes the numbers of People, their Houses, their Fur- 
niture, their Tables, their Dress and Conversation, which perhaps 
is as splendid and showy, as that of the most considerable Trades- 
man in London.” 

To the textiles for drapery and upholstery, which 
continued in favor, was added a variety of rich ma- 
terials, to which the French and Flemish weavers had 
given vogue in England. The later inventories be- 
come more elaborate, and diaries, correspondence, 
and newspaper advertisements reveal the ever grow- 
ing use of fine textiles in the embellishment of the 
home. Painted and printed calicoes, linens, and mus- 
lins are freely noted; ‘“‘glazed chince”’ was advertised 
in the Boston papers as early as 1712; Srcalicoes,. 
“blew Linnen keutins,” “India chints,” and “says 
and serges,” the preceding year. These, when used 
for window and bed curtains and chair coverings, 
could not fail to impart an element of beauty to 
many a parlor and bedroom. 

The appearance of textile printers and dyers from 
London, which was noted in the following advertise- 
ment of the Boston News Letter of April 28, 1712, 
enabled the women of the Colonies to enhance their 
work by a decorative quality: 

“This is to give notice that there is lately arrived here from 
England George Leason, who with Thomas Webber of Boston, 
clothier, have set up a Callendar-Mill and Dye House in Cam- 
bridge-street, Boston, near the Bowling Green: where all gentle- 
men Merchants and others may have all sorts of Linnens, calli- 
coes, stuffs or Silks Callendar’d: Prints all sorts of Linnens; 


Dyes and Scowers all sorts of Silks, and other things and makes 
Buckrames; and all on very reasonable Terms.” 


$2 de Ee PACE Rein GaAs Ne ayo bees 


Meantime our trade with Portugal was large, and 
the importation of French silks and stuffs into Boston 
grew to such an extent that it aroused in 1721 a pro- 
test from the merchants dealing in English goods. 
The cargoes of the rich prizes taken by our Colonial 





FIG. 29. BEAKER BY JACOB 
BOELEN (1654-1729), DATED 1683 


privateers, Spanish and French merchantmen, many 
of which were laden with the products of the looms of 
the Old World, also contributed to our New England 
furnishings. 

Metalwork, too, assumed a finer quality of crafts- 
manship and a more delicate decorative treatment. 
The Colonial silversmiths of this time reach a supreme 
excellence. The taste which the Dutch influence of 


William and Mary brought into England, and which 





FIG, 30. TANKARD BY PETER VAN DYCK 


(1684-1750) 


54 THE AMERICAN Wine 


governed the American work, preferred a solid, sim- 
ple form with concentrated decoration. The teapots 
first follow the lines of the small porcelain examples 
from the East, and gradually increase in size and 
assume a pear shape (figs. 37 and 38). Curved lines 
appear in the domed lids of both tankards and 
flagons, and in the slightly bulbous form of mugs. 
There still continue the straight-sided, truncated cone 
forms in tankards (fig. 30) and pots for coffee and 
chocolate, but octagonal forms are also employed, 
recalling those so usual in the legs of highboys and 
lowboys. 

The decoration includes fine mouldings, gadroon- 
ing, pierced work, engraving, cast details attached to 
handles, repoussé, and twisted wire. But the use of 
all of this ornament is restrained and well subordi- 
nated to the broader surfaces of clear fine metal. 

The number of silversmiths had increased tremen- 
dously, in common with all of the other craftsmen, 
and many of them were men of prominence in affairs, 
continuing the tradition of the earlier day. Such a 
man as John Cony (1655-1722) of Boston is repre- 
sentative of the Colonial silversmith. He was born 
here and learned his trade under Hull and Sanderson. 
Like most silversmiths, Cony was an engraver; he 
engraved the plates for the first paper money used 
in the Colonies. An inkstand made by him, on exhi- 
bition in the third floor gallery, evidences his skill as 
a craftsman (fig. 31). 

Edward Winslow (1669-1753), of a famous New 
England family and one of the greatest Colonial 
ae did much of his finest work during this period. 
His activities, aside from his craft, included many 
civic duties, military and judicial. 


THIRD FLOOR Gs 


In the vicinity of New York certain influences 
from Holland came direct and were cherished among 
the Dutch families who settled so widely thereabout. 
Here these Dutch influences are stronger than in 
New England, since the models for work were pieces 
made by English silversmiths copying Dutch silver, 
or actual work from Holland. The Wynkoops, the 





FIG. 31. INKSTAND BY JOHN cony (1655-1722) 
THE SMALL LIONS RECALL SIMILAR FORMS IN 
ORIENTAL AND EUROPEAN XVII CENTURY CERAMICS 


Boelens, Peter Van Dyck, Onclebagh, among many 
New York makers, produced superb examples of 
their art-craft more elaborate in decoration than 
those of New England. Beautiful mouldings and cut- 
out bandings of leaves, fine engraving and repoussé 
add a great richness and beauty to the solid propor- 
tions of the silver utensils. Their handiwork may be 
studied in the Clearwater Collection. Almost all the 
Colonial plate can be definitely ascribed, as the 
makers stamped their work with their initials. Such 
identification is impossible in the other crafts. 

Large quantities of silver were owned by the well- 


56 THE AMERICAN WING 


to-do families of the period and by the churches, 
which received from members many gifts and legacies 
of tankards and beakers, which had had long house- 
hold use. 

Pewter, too, held its place in the popular use. The 
types, like the silver, followed the late seventeenth- 
century mode whose character is suggested in the 
group of Charles II tankards and dishes on exhibi- 
tion in one of the seventeenth-century rooms. Simi- 
lar to these, no doubt, were the pewter items listed 
in 1701 in the estate of that notorious pirate, Captain 
Kidd of New York. These included three tankards, 
thirteen dishes, two candlesticks, thirty plates, five 
basins, and two salt-cellars. 

In the first quarter of the eighteenth century coal 
erates made their appearance and were extensively 
advertised, and around 1720 they appear to have been 
very popular. “Coal from Newcastle’ was fre- 
quently offered for sale a little later. Andirons in 
brass and iron, fireplace tools and cooking utensils of 
iron, brass, and copper were both made here and 
imported in quantities. Many of the simple practical 
utensils were beautified by a delicate touch in the 
workmanship. Fine house hardware in iron and brass 
received care in its design and manufacture. 

Candles had by this time become less expensive and 
the use of candlesticks was more common. » The 
smoky oil lamp, while still used in country districts 
and on the frontier, had been superseded in the cities 
and towns by the candlestick and sconce. The can- 
dlesticks of silver, pewter, or brass were generally 
small, of balustered form, frequently octagonal or of 
some variation of the octagon in plan. The cups were 
small and without bobéches. 


Alita Do LOOK eri 


An advertisement of 1706 shows that old-time arms 
were still used by the companies of militia. In the 
Boston News Letter of April 22-29 of that year is 
advertised for sale by Nicholas Boone, bookseller, “a 
set of Halberts for a foot company to be sold on rea- 
sonable terms.” 

Pottery at this time was tremendously popular. 
The craze for its collection in England influenced 





FIG. 32. BEAKER BY FIG. 33. PORRINGER 


SHEM DROWNE BY JOHN CONY 
(1683-1774) (1655-1722) 


Colonial taste and the tea-drinking custom added to 
1ts use. 

The custom of tea-drinking was extraordinarily 
prevalent from the end of the seventeenth century, 
affecting not only the furniture types but requiring 
for its proper service earthenware and porcelain cups 
and tea vessels. When it is remembered that the 
price of a pound of tea (30 to 50 shillings) would buy 
eight or ten gallons of rum or a handsome piece of 
furniture, the tiny size of our early teapots and tea- 
cups is easily explained. With these silver and porce- 
lain teapots would go a teaboard, spoons, milk pots, 


58 TH EDAM PRL OANA IW 


sugar dishes, and all the paraphernalia of the tea- 
table. Many of the early living-rooms had several 
tea-tables of various sizes and kinds. The one hun- 
dred and thirty-six teapots, probably imported for 
sale, in the estate of Jacob De Lange (1685), chirur- 
geon of New York, were in all probability Chinese 
and mostly of that red unglazed porcelain, the Ori- 
ental prototype of those delightful, small, highly fin- 
ished teapots, dainty and tasteful in design, made 
by the Elerses and their followers, of which many 





FIG. 34. TWO-HANDLED BOWL 
BY JACOB BOELEN 


were impressed with imitation Chinese marks. Ex- 
amples of these are displayed in the third floor gallery. 

The use of pottery had evidently become general 
enough in the New England colonies to warrant its 
being advertised. We note in the Boston News Letter 
of September 17, 1711, “earthenware as part of a 
ships cargo” offered for sale, and in the same news- 
sheet under dates of March 17, 1712, and February 
16, 1713, an advertisement by Nicholas Roberts of 
“Pottery” and “Six Hogsheads of Earthenware as 
Tea Pots &c.” Twenty years later, the Boston papers 
note the introduction to our people of that beautiful 
white salt-glazed ware, of which the Museum has a 
small group, along with “Tea setts of white, Blew 


TereleR DMs iO Oris 49 


and Japann’d Glass; with also all sorts of White, 
Brown and Blew stone and fine earthenware,” as well 
as “just imported from Holland all sorts of Dutch, 
stone and Delf ware.” 

Along with pottery, much glassware was imported 
and we find it inventoried and advertised throughout 
the period. 

The inventory (1705) of Colonel William Smith of 
St. Georges, Suffolk County, Long Island, includes “1 
case Venice glasses £3” and “‘flint glasses £3.14.0,” 





FIG. 35: PORRINGER BY AN UNKNOWN MAKER 


while Captain Giles Shelley in 1718 owned forty-five 
beer glasses. The Boston News Letter for February 
22, 1720, contains an advertisement of “drinking 
glasses by the crate or dozen.” 

In an advertisement in Boston in 1731 a very large 
assortment of glass utensils is listed as Just imported 
from England. It includes decanters, salvers, punch 
bowls, sugar pots, candlesticks, “barrell cannes,” 
whip, syllabub, jelly and double flint wine glasses, 
fine white japanned glass, in addition to which are 
mentioned all sorts of common glasses, earthen and 
stone wares. In 1732 these glass utensils are named 
in addition to those above: Monteiths, baskets, bird 
fountains, pistols, tea sets of white, blue, and japanned 


60 TH EUA ME RVC AN. Wel nee 


glass. The English glass shown on this floor will 
suggest the types of utensils which were mentioned 
in the advertisements and were in common use in 
well-to-do households. : 

Seventeenth-century inventories do not disclose the 
same sumptuousness in pictorial art as has been 
noted in textiles, porcelains, and pottery. Still there 
is much evidence that oil paintings—portraits, land- 
scapes, and still life—were owned and displayed here 
in many a mansion. 

For the hanging of maps suspended from rollers in 
its seventeenth-century rooms, the Museum finds 
ample authority. This use of maps can be seen in 
paintings by artists of the period, Johannes Vermeer, 
Gabriel Metsu, and Gerard Terborch, in Gallery 26 
and the Altman Collection. These, however, were 
generally hung for utilitarian rather than for decora- 
tive purposes, though we do find an advertisement in 
the Boston News Letter of January 12, 1707, offering 
“emblazoned Maps,” which allows the belief that 
those rich and beautiful examples of the cartogra- 
pher’s art added their color note to some of our early 
rooms. As the eighteenth century rolled on, the in- 
ventories show that these maps were largely rele- 
gated to the entry halls and stairways. Of necessity, 
few such early maps on rollers have survived, as, un- 
protected by glass, the paper ere long became black- 
ened or discolored by the smoky atmosphere of their 
environment, and they disappeared into the discard. 

Many evidences from similar sources, as well as 
from advertisements, tell us not only that there arose 
a general use of prints for hanging on the walls, but 
that print collecting in portfolios was not unknown as 
a collector’s vagary. The reason for the growing in- 


Tie Re De eh TeOrORe 61 


terest in prints 1s easily explainable when we remem- 
ber that our tiny, early eighteenth-century weekly 
newspapers made possible a continued interest in 
what was going on in both the Old World and the 
sister colonies. Their columns, rather devoid of local 
color, were largely given to details of the incessant 
wars fought with important consequences to the col- 


ewes 
— 
— 
S conaaeel 
<> 


46, 


é (i 
6 pofiogse® 





FIG. 36. BAPTISMAL BASIN BY JACOBUS 
VAN DER SPIEGEL 


onists, and the happenings of various sorts in Europe 
and America. Thus the names of the heroes of the 
Old World became household words in the New. An 
eager desire arose to visualize the men and scenes 
which were in the public mind. Returning travelers 
and visitors from abroad brought with them descrip- 
tions of the cities and towns from which many of the 
original settlers had come, and thereby whetted the 
appetite for “Prospects” not only of the mother 
country but also of foreign cities. 


62 TLE ALM Rel CoA Nt Go Lane 


The following advertisement in The New England 
Courant (Boston) of August 27, 1722, indicates that 
print selling was a well-established trade, and also 
dates the introduction into Boston of that monu- 
mental engraving of New York, 77 x 20% inches in 
size, printed in four sections, which unquestionably is 
the most interesting engraving connected with our 
country’s early history, and which is exhibited at 
the head of the stairway: 

“To be sold at the Picture Shop over against the Towne-House 
‘n Boston an exact Prospect of the City of New York, with all 


Sorts of Prints and Maps lately come from London in frames or 
without by Will Price.” 


This interesting engraving, of which only two known 
copies exist, we find variously priced from ten to 
eight shillings in New England and New York in- 
ventories. 

Another print which unquestionably hung on the 
walls of many an American home, and which is dis- 
‘ played in the Portsmouth room, is that very rare 
view of Harvard College whose advent was thus an- 
nounced in the Boston News Letter of July 21, 1726: 

“Lately Published, A Prospect of the Colledges in Cambridge 1 
New England, curiously Engraven in Copper, and are to be Sold 
at Mr. Prices print seller over against the Town House, Mr. 
Randal, fappanner in Ann-Street, dy Mr. Stedman in Cambridge, 
and the Booksellers of Boston.”’ 

The year 1728 finds Thomas Hancock, a wealthy 
Boston merchant and the uncle of John Hancock, 
advertising: ‘‘To be sold also at the abovesaid place 
Pictures in Frames and glaz’d at the Bible and Three 
Crowns near the Town Dock.” 

The inventory of Governor William Burnet (1729) 
evidences his interest in engravings, including as it 





FIG. 37. TEAPOT BY JACOB HURD, FOLLOWING 
THE CHINESE FORM OF THE PORCELAIN 
POTS FIRST IMPORTED 





FIG. 38. TEAPOT BY JOHN LE ROUX, FOLLOWING A 
DESIGN REMINISCENT OF TURNING 


64 TlH EA MER Cot Ns Wee 


does, in addition to one hundred and fifty-one Italian 
prints, which were probably kept in a portfolio, “17 
masentinto prints in frames 3 ditto small, 3 ditto 
that are glazed ' £5.4.0 and 44 prints in black frames 
Cal sO 

The grief shown throughout New England over the 
death (Feb. 13, 1728) of that eminent divine and 
scholar, Cotton Mather, prompted Peter Pelham, an 
English engraver, who had come to Boston some 
years before, to publish in the following week a pro- 
posal to engrave a portrait of the deceased. This por- 
trait, the first engraved in mezzotint in this country, 
together with later portraits by Pelham, has been 
recently added to the Museum collections by the be- 
quest of Charles Allen Munn.’ 

The first engraving made in America by a native- 
born American which shows some artistic pretension 
in its emblematic vignette is that plan of “Boston N. 
Eng Planted A. D. MDCXXX, engraven by Thos. 
Johnson, Boston N.E.” and published by Will Bur- 


gis (c.f egy 


And so we find this first period, which began in 
primitive efforts to achieve comfortable and pleasant 
surroundings in daily life, ending with a sophisticated 
comfort based upon accumulated wealth, an organ- 
‘zed social life, and reasonably stable political condi- 
tions. Its earliest artistic expression begins to change 


1 The fact that of the above-mentioned sixty-seven framed prints only 
three were protected by glass answers the question which naturally arises 
as to why so few of our early ancestral engravings have survived the wear 
and tear of the past two centuries. The deep matting of prints is a nine- 
teenth-century innovation. 

2 Hung in the Portsmouth room. 

3 On the wall of the Newington room. 


THIRD FLOOR 65 


with the introduction from England of the new influ- 
ences which had exerted a potent sway there at the end 
of the seventeenth century. With the eighteenth cen- 
tury under way, the full effects of this change appear. 


itis ROOMS OF THE FIRST 
PERIOD 


On this third floor, then, are gathered together a 
representative collection of the utilitarian arts in the 
early tradition. In the main gallery and in the two 
rooms reproducing seventeenth-century interiors are 
grouped examples of the earlier types before an appre- 
ciable amount of pure continental influence is observ- 
able. In the other rooms are shown various phases of 
the transition as these foreign influences began to 
take hold. The whole group, however, preserves a 
homogeneous character which, strongly marked in the 
more conventional works of architecture and furni- 
ture, is echoed in the associated metalwork, textiles, 
and pottery. 


Peowerision lot LON “GAsL LakoR Y 


In this room are brought together selected repre- 
sentations of the interior architecture, furniture, and 
art-crafts of the earliest period of Colonial endeavor, 
with a few examples in which the first effects of the 
transition to a new style appear. 

In the architectural setting, a modern installation, 
strict historical precedent has been followed for the 


1 See the floor plan at the end of this Handbook. 


66 TH BAM ERI CAM ow oe 


treatment of a large room open to the roof. The great 
trusses supported upon posts at the walls are modeled 
directly after those in a famous old Massachusetts 
church, the First Parish Church of Hingham," known 
as the “Old Ship Meeting-House.” 

This treatment shows more emphatically than per- 
haps any other in America the strong tradition of late 
Gothic building which the colonists brought with 
them in the seventeenth century. Not only is the 
structural truss designed in the manner of late 
fifteenth-century English work, but the efforts at 
decoration by the introduction of the great curved 
members, the small curved brackets, and the cham- 
fering are strongly reminiscent of the halls of many 
small English manor houses. These simple chamfers 
lighten the edges of the truss members and add some 
element of decoration to the posts. 

This historic meeting-house, the “Old Ship” at 
Hingham, Massachusetts, was built in the year 1687, 
replacing the first meeting-house, which had been 
put up shortly after the settlement in 1635. Of the 
second meeting-house we may quote the following 
description:? “On August 11, 1680, the dimensions 
of the house were fixed by a vote of the town, these 
being fifty-five feet in length, forty-five feet in 
breadth, and the height of the posts twenty feet. 
There were galleries on the sides and porch end..’ 

Undoubtedly the church was originally designed 
with the trusses exposed, since the finish of their 
heavy timbers is such as would never have been at-. 

1For the suggestion of this treatment the Museum is indebted to 
W. W. Cordingly, of Chestnut Hill, Mass., who has very kindly supplied 
both drawings of the old roof and a scale model adapting the old trusses 


to conditions in the Museum. 
2 Aymar Embury II, Early American Churches, p. 38. 


qdoladd LSald AHL AO SI AYNLINYNAA AHL *(1891) WVHONIH 
TO (. ASNOH-ONILAAW diHS A10,, SHL AO AANLONULS AHL LVAdAa 
JOOU AHL JO SASSOUL JHL “WOOT GUIHL SAYATIVO NIVW ‘OE ‘ord 





68 TH EA M-EoRd CA NY WelNee 


tempted if they had been meant to be hidden from 
view. The present ceiling of the church is a later 
addition and hides the roof-framing completely. The 
posts are chamfered, the chamfers ending in an 
elaborate silhouette. This open roof-framing was the 
normal and usual method with which the early 
settlers had been familiar and thus it is that they 
would undoubtedly have roofed any large, high 
room. 

An interesting record of 1657 from Dedham, Mass., 
tells of another such church, now destroyed, where an 
open timber roof must have existed. This record 
states the request “that liberty be given to some 
young men to build a gallery between the two great 
beams on the south side of the Meeting House.”’ The 
creat beams referred to must certainly have been the 
heavy bottom members of a roof truss of some 
sort. 

The high lighting in the end of the gable is a conces- 
sion to practical necessity. It enables a consistent 
roof treatment in the spirit of the time and shows the 
furniture and other objects under a diffused side- 
light, thus bringing out much of their original quality. 
The ‘Old Ship Meeting-House” was lighted by 
dormer windows in the roof and the arrangement of 
the roof trusses was somewhat different from that of 
the present gallery. The necessity of obtaining strong 
cross-lighting for the study of the various objects 
exhibited has led us to follow an English precedent 
for gable lighting rather than the dormer method 
_more general in America, which was more economical 
of glass. This gable lighting is wholly consonant in 
character with the architectural scheme of the room 
and the traditions with which the early colonists were 


tel RD. Fit 0.0 1R 69 


familiar, but up to date no actual example of its use 
in America has been discovered. 

Of the furniture shown in this gallery, the majority 
is of the heavy oaken type used by the earliest 
settlers. The group of chests (figs. 1 and 2) includes 
the simple one with stile and rail paneling ornamented 
with carving, moulding, or turning, and chests show- 
ing the introduction of one or more drawers beneath 
the chest proper, leading up to the chest of drawers 
in which the chest portion has been crowded out. 
One or two early examples of the highboy (fig. 2), the 
chest raised upon a supporting framework, lead to 
the later development shown in the adjacent rooms 
and on the floor below. 

The cupboards (figs. 5 and 6) give a clear idea of 
the variety of form and decoration found in these 
most imposing pieces of the seventeenth century. 
Carving, turning, moulding, and applied motifs serve 
as decoration and different arrangements of doors 
witness the possible variety in their design. Upon 
them are arranged groups of pottery and silver, 
giving a suggestion of the decorative possibilities 
in their use. 

A number of desk-boxes (fig. 3), decorated in the 
same manner as the chests, include the type where 
this small piece has been raised on legs, thus leading 
the way to the development of the desk form. 

Of chairs, there are a number of the wainscot type 
(fig. 7), ornamented with turning and carving and 
fitted with the thin pads which gave some comfort to 
the hard seats. A large and heavy seventeenth-cen- 
tury chair of the slat and spindle type is shown, for 
comparison with the turned and slat-backed chairs 
developed from it. Of these two types, the spindle 


wie) THE AMER TC ANAW TRS 


and the slat-backed, there are several examples, the 
so-called Carver chair with its vertical spindles set 
into horizontal rungs being one of the most interest- 
ing. Of the slat-backed type, the earliest is that with 
very heavy back- and front-posts, the back-posts 
topped with turned finials, the front-posts with mush- 
room knobs. The seats of these chairs and the stools 
are covered with flat pads of seventeenth-century 
velvet or damask; the universal use of cushions at 
this period is again evidenced by the record of those 
owned by one Henry Webb in 1660, which included 
“six green cushions mixed with yellow” (probably 
brocatelle), the same number of “‘velvets, fringed and 
wrought, six needlework cushions, and four others 
with muscada ends’”’—that is, the color of the musca- 
dine grape. One rare chair, lent for the opening exhi- 
bition, has its original Turkey-work, one of the most 
popular textiles of the period for upholstery, covers, 
and carpets (fig. 11). The group of small stools ex- 
hibits the same essential characteristics as the chairs 
and tables. 

Of the tables the earliest in type and the most 
primitive in craftsmanship is the long trestle table 
(fig. 13) of pine and oak. This is a close relative of the 
refectory tables used generally in the English homes 
of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and still to 
be seen in their original locations. This piece employs 
no more advanced decorative method than the 
chamfering of the posts into octagonal form. The 
brace is pegged into place in the posts, the top Is re- 
movable, and the wide feet give stability. ““Forms”’ 
and stools were used with such a table as this. 

A number of gate-leg tables (fg. 15) show the 
diversity in turned designs and the use of single and 


etieieR’ DD. SFeLOrOrk nal 


double gates of different size. Most of these date well 
toward the end of the seventeenth century, if not in 
the early eighteenth, while the butterfly tables of 
about the same time complete the group of drop-leaf 
tables. 

In all of this furniture is preserved the simple rec- 
tangular construction with few decorative methods. 
Oak is the predominant material, but combined with 
many other woods of local usage. 

The little oaken paneled cradle ' 1s a rare piece (fig. 
18). It may suggest a type of the early beds with 
paneled headboards, many of them undoubtedly hay- 
ing the high posts, turned and carved, which are usual 
in Elizabethan and Jacobean work. Numerous rich 
sets of bed hangings, valances, and coverlets are men- 
tioned in the inventories. For instance, Thomas Cort- 
more of Charlestown, Mass. (1645), had “‘a bedstead 
with trundle bedstead, matts and:cord”’ for which 
the hangings were a pair of striped silk curtains and 
valance. Sci tr: 

Leather, too, was used on many chairs, seven so 
covered being noted in the “Great Parlour” of the 
Rev. John Cotton who came to Boston in 1633. 

The textiles used in this gallery are actual ones of 
the period such as must originally have supplied the 
rich color which harmonized with the strong tones of 
the wood. Velvets, damasks, and needlework appear 
as chair seats, cupboard, table, and chest cloths. 
Painted cotton hangings and cupboard cloths of 
East Indian provenance became very popular in the 
seventeenth century and continued in use well into 
the eighteenth. 


1Shown in the seventeenth-century room reproduced from the 
kitchen in the Capen house at Topsfield. 


72 mh 8 sant OF (AM OR: Tene goa 


A group of silver tankards of the late seventeenth- 
century type emphasizes the fact that even in the 
very early days the craft of the silversmith reached a 
high point of excellence. Here are seen the straight- 
sided, truncated cone form, flat-topped, with finely 
moulded or decorated bases, thumb-pieces, and 
handles. 

The English pewter in the seventeenth-century 
rooms includes characteristic shapes and utensils 
such as are mentioned in many an early inventory. 

The few bits of pottery and porcelain are also of 
the period. They comprise the stonewares and earth- 
enwares of Staffordshire make, the Holland Delft and 
English Delft (tin-glazed earthenware) which at first 
imitated the Chinese porcelains then beginning to find 
their way into Europe, and also a few pieces of the 
Oriental porcelains. 

The seventeenth-century painting shown is related 
to contemporary work abroad, dominated by the 
Dutch seventeenth-century masters. It is a portrait 
of Jan Strycker painted by his artist brother, Jacobus 
Gerritsen Strycker, and signed on the front &TATIS 
38—1655. Jan Strycker (1617-1697) was a magis- 
trate prominent in the early life of New Amsterdam. 
Jacobus Gerritsen Strycker was a farmer, trader, 
magistrate, and “limner.” He came to New Amster- 
dam in 1651, was enrolled as burgher in 1653 and 
afterwards alderman of New Amsterdam, attorney- 
general and sheriff of the Dutch towns on Long 
Island. The inscription on the back, “Given to 
Altje by her father Jacobus Gerritsen Strycker, who 
himself drew this likeness of his brother Jan,” verifies 
it as being the work of the earliest American portrait 
painter of whom we have a record. 


ile eels Ox) ake 3 





Peewee OeU CTIONS OF ROOMS 
Rereorvlen tO PS FIELD A ND 
Meee rH MASS ACH US.ETT'S 





The impossibility of obtaining good interiors of 
actual seventeenth-century houses has compelled the 
Museum in order to represent the early type to repro- 
duce two of the best-known rooms and an entry from 
houses built in Massachusetts in the seventeenth 
century, the Hart house at Ipswich and the Parson 
Capen house at Topsfield, both of which are still 
standing. 

These two rooms reproduce the general aspect of 
those found in the New England houses thus referred 
to by Edward Johnson (1642) in his Wonder-Working 
Providence of Sions Saviour in New England: “Fur- 
ther the Lord hath been pleased to turn all the wig- 
wams, huts and hovels the English dwelt in at their 
first coming, into orderly, fair and well built houses, 
well furnished many of them.” 

It was round the firesides of rooms like these that 
the discussions were held which led to the founding of 
the college at Cambridge (1639), the planning of the 
campaigns of the Indian wars conducted by Captains 
Mason, Underhill, and others, and the forming of the 
Cambridge Platform in 1648, which made it the duty 
of the Massachusetts magistrates to suppress heresy, 
thus completing the theocratic organization of the 
Puritan commonwealth of Massachusetts. Such 
walls encompassed as well the fevered talk which led 
to the executions of the Quakers on the Boston Com- 
mon in 1649, and fierce denunciations of witchcraft. 
Rooms similar to these sheltered Goffe, Dixwell, and 


74, THE AMERICAN WING 


Whalley, the regicides, who, after the return of 
Charles II, fled to New England, where they lived 
in retirement the rest of their days. In fact, almost all 
of the political history and romance of seventeenth- 
century New England could be written against the 
background of such interiors as these. 


Teo Ne eae 


The little entry with stairs follows generally in its 
details that of the Capen house at Topsfield, Massa- 
chusetts. The stair with winders at top and bottom 
has a closed string, the latter moulded, turned balus- 
ters, a square newel-post with moulded cap, and verti- 
cal boarding on the cheek of the staircase. It fits 
against the great brick wall of the chimney. The 
other three walls reveal the construction of studs and 
plates uncovered. 

The heavy door, sheathed and nail-studded, 1s 
modeled upon that of the original from the John 
Sheldon house at Deerfield, Massachusetts, built 
about 1698. Its bolts, hinges, and combination 
knocker and handle are reproduced from original 
models. 

THE KITCHEN 


The arrangement and detail of the room to the left 
of the entry have been taken from the Capen house 
at Topsfield, Massachusetts, dating from 1683. The 
dimensions of the Museum room differ from those of 
the original in some slight degree, but the general 
scheme remains the same. The effort in this and the 
next room has been to re-create typical interiors of 
the seventeenth century, using as models originals 
which show some beginnings of architectural embel- 
lishment (fig. 40). 


AYALNAD HLNADLNIAIS IHL JO JIVH 
GNOOUS HL JO JUV SONIHSINUAA JHL “(€QgI) ATIasdOL 
ASNOH NAdVO AHL JO NAHOLIN JHL dO NOILONGOUdaA ‘OF “Old 





76 THE AMERICAN WING 


It is the kitchen of the Capen house that this room 
reproduces, and it is here fitted up to resemble 
closely the general style of kitchen in a two-room 
seventeenth-century New England house. The kit- 
chen served for practically every use; it was a dining- 
room, living-room, and bedroom combined. 

The framing of this room is the first detail to note. 
Heavy corner posts support a girt of oak. Upon this 
rests the central summer beam, which runs from it 
to the chimney girt. From this summer beam the 
joists of the floor above frame into the girt. This very 
simple method of construction is typical of the fram- 
ing seen in most of the houses of this period. 

Given the oaken structure of posts, girt, beam, and 
joists, the next step was a simple attempt at decora- 
tion. In this room we see a chamfering of the 
summer beam and the cutting of the corner posts into 
a crude bracket form to give wider support to the 
girt. Next, the window mullions are moulded to les- 
sen the effect of thickness, and the triangular leading 
gives a certain scale of its own. The model for these 
windows is the original group casement in the Browne 
house at Watertown, Massachusetts, built in 1663. 
The fireplace wall is sheathed in vertical pine boards 
which carry mouldings typical of seventeenth- 
century work. The doors continue this sheathing. 
Around the other three walls the pine boarding runs 
horizontally, made up of very wide planks matched 
and moulded at their edges. A wide pine board runs 
above the fireplace, covering the great oak lintel 
which forms the top of the opening. Above the fire- 
place a plastered cove curves out to meet the girt at 
the angle of the ceiling. 

The great brick fireplace, of seventeenth-century 


Ter aR Di bt 0109R a 


bricks, has the round bake-oven in the left-hand cor- 
ner and up in the chimney the sapling from which 
were hung the trammels and hooks to support the 
pots and kettles, since this was a day before the iron 
crane was used. Many a child set to watch the pots 
boiling over the fire was badly burnt by the breaking 
of this trammel bar which was soon charred from the 
heat. 

The main oak frame of the house was pegged to- 
gether with wooden pegs, which may be seen in the 
girt. The sheathing was nailed with hand-wrought 
nails, the edges of the heads being turned over and 
driven back into the wood. The modern hardware 
of the door reproduces old designs. 

The placing of the triple window in the north side 
of the room, which is necessary to secure light, is 
unusual, this window generally occurring on the 
south side, the same side as the entrance door. It 
will be noted that the two flanking window frames are 
fixed, only the central sash being hinged. The wooden 
bars which strengthen the leaden divisions are an 
interesting survival from early English usage. 

The furniture in this room consists of examples 
similar to those shown in the large gallery outside, 
but selected for their especial fitness in the ensemble 
of this re-creation of a furnished interior of the last 
half of the seventeenth century. There would, of 
course, be the ccurt-cupboard and the chest, chairs, 
tables, stools, a settle, a desk-box, and a dresser. The 
original room undoubtedly contained some simple 
framed bed, the mattress of which might have been 
filled with feathers, grass, rags, or cattails. Beds with 
testers were not unknown, but would more likely have 
been placed in the “‘Great Hall” on the other side of 


78 THE) (ARME REL G APN SE Tans 


the entry. A settle was often placed beside the fire- 
place to screen the draught from the doorway; chairs 
and tables near the fire contributed to comfort in cold 
weather. In the cupboards were kept foods and mate- 
rials for housework; in the chests, clothes, hangings, 
and other textiles when not in use. The silver, pew- 
ter, and potteries were arranged on the cupboards 
and dressers, while great kettles and pots hung on 
trammel hooks over the fire. 

The little betty-lamps were lowered into the 
kettles over the fire to provide light for an examina- 
tion of the state of their contents. The rooms were 
lighted with rush-lights, tallow dips, and “tin hang- 
ing candlesticks” (1657). Crude lanterns for the 
burning of whale oil were not uncommon, since the 
whale oil industry was firmly established as early 
as 1652 on Cape Cod. 

The cushions on the chairs and stools in this room 
are covered with seventeenth-century linen in red, 
ereen, and yellow, 


THE PARLOR OR. KE EVAN oe 


The original of this room is the parlor of the Hart 
house (c. 1640) at Ipswich, Massachusetts. It shows 
a more definite effort toward decorative effect than 
any contemporary room still in existence, and for this 
reason has been chosen as a model. In it are brought 
together more methods of architectural decoration 
than are usually associated with seventeenth-century 
Colonial work (fig. 41). 

The general framing is similar to that of the Capen 
house room but here the girts as well as the summer 
beam are chamfered. The quarter-round chamfer 1s a 
step more elaborate than the flat bevel of the Capen 


o$g1 LOOdV JO dGOIWdad AHL AO SV GAHSINUAA SHOIMSdI 
ASQOH LUVH AHL JO YOTUVd AHL AO NOILONGOUdAU “IV “Ol 





80 T teh ALM BRT CUAr Nae eee 


room. Many varieties of chamfer occur in different 
houses and in them some of the woodworker’s love of 
his technique showsitself. The group of windows, again 
placed in the north instead of the south wall and cop- 
ied from the Browne house at Watertown, Massachu- 
setts, has leaded sashes, the middle one fixed, between 
moulded mullions. Three of the walls are plastered 
and unpaneled. The fourth wall, that containing the 
fireplace, is sheathed with vertical moulded boards. 
The mouldings are worthy of examination. 

Above the fireplace opening runs a band of decora- 
tion, an effective use of a double row of dentils cut 
from a moulded board. On them is introduced the 
use of color—red and black—of which traces re- 
mained on the original room before it was renovated 
some years ago. This forms the earliest use of color 
in Colonial architecture of which we have any record. 
In lieu of a cornice, a moulded strip, cut out with 
dentils of a slightly larger scale than those above the 
fireplace, runs along the sheathing at the angle of the 
ceiling, and mitres around the summer beam. Here, 
too, color is used. The fireplace is similar to that in 
the next room, the rounded corner dating both fire- 
places subsequent to 1680. These fireplaces do not 
follow those in the original rooms. 

The furniture shown in this room illustrates the 
variety of the contemporary types, harmonious with 
the architectural setting. The court cupboard 1s 
carved, as are the chest and the wainscot chair. This 
chair is of particular interest since its history tells us 
that it was made in the voyage of the ship Anne to 
New England in 1623. It is unusually elaborate. A 
fine chair-table is related in its decoration to the 
architectural woodwork. Stools, a rectangular table 


Mateo ReD. © Oc SI 


with fretted brackets, side-chairs, and desk-box all 
exhibit the furniture of the seventeenth-century col- 
onists in its handsomest vein, and are accompanied 
by a subdued richness of colored textiles. Small 
groups of English pewter tankards and Chinese 
porcelain plates show types of imported utensils used 
in the Colonies. The little map depicting a view of 
New York in 1653 forms a useful and decorative ele- 
ment noted in many inventories. 





Reo sOeMes FoROO M-) Nee W IN GTO: N 
CVsO [NEN ENCo Th CUE 





This room allows a glimpse into the home surround- 
ings that prevailed in the second quarter of the eigh- 
teenth century in Connecticut, and particularly in the 
Connecticut River valley. This was peopled by the 
descendants of men from Dorchester, Newtown, and 
Watertown, Massachusetts, who, accompanied by 
their families, literally hewed their way through 
trackless forests to the site of what is now Hartford. 
Here they settled in 1635, and here was made (1639) 
the first practical assertion of the right of the people 
not only to choose, but to limit the powers of, their 
rulers—an assertion which lies at the very foundation 
of our system of government. Near West Hartford, 
Wethersfield, and Farmington is the town of Newing- 
ton, whose first settler, John Andrews, migrated from 
Farmington. Because of danger from the Indians his 
home was fortified, thereby providing a refuge for the 
rest of the settlers, who came there each night with 
their families and slept under arms. 

This interesting little room has been built up 
around the paneled fireplace wall dating from the 


82. THE. om MB RoC AN WVoleNe@ 


second quarter of the eighteenth century (eae 
The unpainted pine of the paneling below the boxed- 
in girt is all original. The other three walls, the corner 
posts, girt, and summer beam are reconstructions. 

Here we have a typical provincial Connecticut 1n- 
terior. As was often the case at the time, the colonist 
who had accumulated enough worldly wealth to jus- 
tify his devoting some of it to artistic surroundings 
would have constructed in his house, already old, a 
newly paneled room. In fitting such a room into his 
earlier interior the corner posts, girts, and summer 
beam, projecting as they did, created a problem. This 
was frequently met as in the present room: the girt, 
summer beam, and posts were cased in wood, the 
soffit of the summer beam sometimes paneled to bring 
it up to date. A crown moulding would break the 
angle between these and the ceiling and form a sort of 
cornice. Frequently the paneling was set between the 
corner posts of the fireplace wall; sometimes, as here, 
it was set in front of the posts. The sliding shutters, 
an interesting detail, were usual in such houses. 

In architectural character the room marks a dis- 
tinct change from the earlier type which we have just 
visited. It illustrates the visible effect of the new in- 
fluences which came to the Colonies early in the 
eighteenth century. Here is stile and rail paneling set 
with beveled panels. Here are fluted pilasters, a shell 
cupboard, and mouldings different from those of 
Gothic tradition. In other words, we have a quaint, 
provincial expression of Renaissance forms whose 
basis was classic in contradistinction to Gothic. 

The immediate inspiration of our paneling was no 
doubt English, and English of the Queen Anne period. 


The arched panels, which are the most distinctive 


ene is samc pe a a 








ROOM FROM NEWINGTON, CONNECTICUT 


FIG. 42. 


84 THE AMERICAN WING 


feature of the woodwork, are strongly reminiscent of 
a treatment usual in work of the reigns of Queen Anne 
and George I. The crossed stiles in the lower part of 
the wainscot and doors form a design peculiar to the 
Connecticut River towns, while the carved round 
flower at the top of the pilaster is a detail found fre- 
quently in both the exterior and the interior of Con- 
necticut houses of the eighteenth century. 

The bolection-moulding around the fireplace is 
another English inheritance from the time of William 
and Mary and Queen Anne, while the carved shell in 
the wall cupboard is of good quality and recalls simi- 
lar details of those periods. 

The raised hearth would suggest that this room was 
an upstairs room, although the considerable elabora- 
tion of treatment would seem unusual in any but a 
principal room in the house. The fireplace lining and 
hearth are of Connecticut brownstone, a not too 
permanent material for such a purpose but one 
generally used. 

For furnishings there have been brought together 
articles which might well have found a place in such a 
room. The most important is the painted Connecti- 
cut chest, dated 1705. Here is a three-paneled chest 
with drawers below, which might have been handed 
down one short generation. It shows in its painted 
decoration a trace of the new influences evident early 
in the century. The gate-leg and butterfly tables, the 
rush-seated, slat-backed chairs show a lightening in 
structure which characterizes the end of the first 
period. The burled walnut highboy is of a somewhat 
more sophisticated type than the other furniture in 
the room. 

In the house of a man who could afford so complete 


HiT RDS NW Goer 85 


a paneled wall would naturally have been found the 
usual accompaniments of good textiles, some silver, 
pottery or porcelain in the cupboard, paintings and 
prints on the walls. 

The paintings in this room are historic in the annals 
of Connecticut, picturing as they do James Pierpont 
—born at Roxbury, Massachusetts, 1659, graduate 
of Harvard 1681, resident of New Haven 1685, and 
one of the founders of Yale College—and his wife, 
born in Farmington in 1673, granddaughter of 
Thomas Hooker, founder of Hartford. Her portrait 
hung in the Pierpont house at New Haven at the 
time it was used for a hospital by the British in E70: 
Where it received a bayonet thrust. The portraits 
are definitely dated as of 1711, the artist having 
painted on that of James Pierpont “tat 51,” and 
on the portrait of his wife “tat 38.” 

The first engraving made in America by a native- 
born American is the plan shown here of “ Boston N. 
Eng Planted A.D.MDCXXX, engraven by Thos. 
Johnson, Boston N.E.” and published by Will 
Burgis (c. 17209). 





hMaowevt ot ROM HAM P-T ON 
Neve i AM Pts -H PRE 





The Museum’s earliest old room is a bed-chamber 
removed many years ago from an old house in Hamp- 
ton,t New Hampshire, the fourth earliest settlement 
in New England, “granted as a plantation” in 1638 
and “incorporated in 1639.”’ Certain details in the 
construction of this room indicate that some time 


‘It stood in what is now known as Kensington, three miles from Exe- 


ter. Kensington was incorporated in 1737 and was originally part of 
Hampton. 


86 TH E “AME R1G AN WONG 


about the end of the first quarter of the eighteenth 
century the paneling was inserted into a seventeenth- 
century dwelling, the mistress of which had possibly 
seen a similar room on a visit to Boston or elsewhere. 
The same custom of doing over the interiors of houses, 
which exists today, is one which long prevailed here, 
thereby forbidding the dating of many of our old 
buildings by the details in the treatment of their in- 
teriors alone. Hampton’s first settlers (1639) had 
originally come from Norfolk, England, many of 
them were friends and followers of that picturesque 
woman, Anne Hutchinson, and were led by their pas- 
tor, the Rev. Stephen Bacheller, then seventy-seven 
years of age. It is more than probable that the 
original house and its inhabitants were a part of the 
picture so appealingly described by John Greenleaf 
Whittier in his Tent on the Beach—a poem based 
upon the banishment in 1662 of Eunice Cole, a re- 
puted witch of Hampton. | 

This room, although of the utmost simplicity in 
design, is of particular interest in its possession of a 
paneled ceiling. Of the woodwork everything but the 
large ceiling panels ' and the window sash is original 
and the pine has never been painted. This room 
would seem from its lack of a fireplace to have been 
an upstairs room and, as we have said, was probably 
built into a much earlier house, since there 1s no trace 
of there ever having been windows fitted to the 
paneling (fig. 43). 

This woodwork shows the simplest use of stile and 


1 The former presence of the large panels was proved by the clean open 
rebates into which they fitted. Other parts of the upper side of the ceiling 
were coated with traces of plaster but no trace of it was found in the 
rebates. 


° 


SUIHSdWVH MAIN ‘NOLAWVH WOW WOOU ‘CY o14 





88 THE AM ER CU Ny Oven 


rail paneling with raised beveled panels. Only one 
moulding profile is used in the whole room. In the 
paneled ceiling there is a suggestion of French pro- 
vincial flavor, quite unlike any work typical of Eng- 
lish or American Colonial usage, which brings the 
thought that some French Huguenot carpenter, an 
emigrant from France or England, had a hand in its 
fashioning. 

This room came, we know, from a farmhouse, and 
in furnishing it we have used the simple but well- 
made pieces of furniture which might have been 
found in the best bedroom of a well-to-do farmer- 
colonist. The simple, rather crude folding bed const- 
tutes a sufficient framework for the old needlework 
hangings and coverlet. These worsted embroideries 
on linen follow more or less closely the English work 
of the same time and mark a transition between the 
use of heavy, solid needlework or woven woolen 
stuffs and the use of the lighter, printed chintzes. 
There might well have been used printed cotton 
cushions similar to those described by Benjamin 
Franklin in a letter from London in 1758 to his wife 
in Philadelphia, “There are also fifty-six yards of 
cotton, printed curiously from copper plates, a new 
invention, to make bed and window curtains; and 
seven yards of chair bottoms, printed in the same 
way, very neat. This was my fancy, but Mrs. 
Stevenson tells me I did wrong not to buy both of 
the same colour.” A chest of drawers, candlesticks, 
a spinning wheel, a lowboy, a looking-glass, table, and 
chairs form a complete and comfortable equipment. 
Two rare embroidered pictures of the middle of the 
eighteenth century have considerable decorative 
quality. 


TUBE TEVSe9 By 6120) ORO 89 


Pecos ob RO MP OTR IOS MO U TH 
Reis ake LS .l-A No D 


The paneled fireplace wall of this room came from 
Portsmouth, a hamlet four miles distant from New- 
port, Rhode Island. Portsmouth owes its beginning 
to Anne Hutchinson who, after her trial for heresy 
and sedition, settled here accompanied by her hus- 
band and fifteen children, and purchased from the 
Narragansett Indians for forty fathoms of wampum 
the island of Acquidneck (1638). 

This room is another example of Colonial paneling 
put into place long after the building of the house it- 
self, which probably was erected close to the end of 
the seventeenth century. It may well serve as a re- 
minder of the suburban life of the residents of our 
prosperous seaport towns in the third quarter of the 
eighteenth century, as it was the large ground-floor 
room in the summer home of Metcalf Bowler, one of 
Rhode Island’s most illustrious patriots and the buil- 
der of the handsome Vernon house which 1s still 
standing in Newport. The owner was a fine repre- 
sentative of those wealthy old Newport merchants, 
whose ships, fitted up as privateers or laden with 
lumber, salt fish, and grain, sailed to the West Indies 
where their cargoes were exchanged for molasses. 
This in its turn was converted into rum in the New 
England distilleries and thence exported to Africa in 
payment for return cargoes of slaves to be sold in the 
Colonies and West Indies—a lucrative trade and the 
foundation of many a Colonial fortune. Most active 
in his opposition to the American policy of King 
George III, Bowler was one of the two delegates 


gO TH BY AMER CAIN] OVE aN 


from Rhode Island to the Congress of 1765 held in 
New York in protest against the Stamp Act. To this 
he went in his own coach and four. In 1768 he was 
made speaker of the General Assembly of Rhode 
Island in which office he served for fifteen years, and 
in 1774 read at that memorable meeting at Faneuil 
Hall in Boston Rhode Island’s letter urging a “firm 
and close union”? between the Colonies. The house, 
which stood opposite the house purchased in 1753 
by Charles Bowler, an Englishman who had come to 
Boston in 1740 and was appointed Collector of Reve- 
nues in Newport in 1753, was purchased from Gideon 
Cornell for a summer home by Metcalf Bowler in 1764. 
Its formal gardens, eleven and a half acres in extent, 
were laid out with fish ponds and fountains, and filled, 
as were many others, with rare plants and trees 
brought from different parts of the globe. It was here 
Bowler loved to retire and entertain his friends. 

This woodwork, representative of provincial work 
of the third quarter of the eighteenth century, has 
been reconstructed around the long, paneled fireplace 
wall (fig. 44). All of this wall is the original woodwork 
with the exception of the paneled sliding doors over 
the fireplace! and the shelves within, which have 
been restored from photographs. The three other 
walls are modern. 

The paneling has a salty flavor as of the sea, and it 
is not unlikely that a ship’s carpenter did the work, 
since the owner was a merchant whose own ships 
carried on an extensive commerce. Here we again 
have a provincial rendition of the Renaissance theme 


1 The bricks in this fireplace, as in all the others, are of the period and 
of the various shapes and sizes peculiar to the locality in which the rooms 
originally stood. 





ROOM FROM PORTSMOUTH, RHODE ISLAND 


FIG. 44. 


O2 THE. A.M ER I CAN (Wot 


with stile and rail paneling set between pilasters 
whose flutes are reeded in their lower portions. There 
is considerable refinement in the mouldings around 
the panels and in those which surround the raised 
field. Curious and unusual bolections surround doors 
and fireplace, and the breaking out of the crown 
mould over the doors, as it does over the pilasters, 
shows a desire for a rhythmic spacing of breaks 
along the cornice. 

A detail which again bespeaks the presence of the 
ship’s carpenter is the exaggerated bevel of the edges 
of the doors and the rebates which receive them. A 
thorough craftsmanship 1s seen in the careful finish of 
the door-leaves, which are identically moulded on 
both face and back. 

In furnishing this room we rely upon our knowledge 
that the owner was a rich merchant of Newport 
whose country house this was, and whose town house 
was one of the finest in the city. Here would, no 
doubt, have been found many fine pieces of furniture 
of a slightly earlier period than the room, which 
might not have found a place in the city home where 
the latest fashion ruled. We have, therefore, grouped 
here some of the best pieces of veneered walnut fur- 
niture of the second quarter of the century—high- — 
boys and lowboys with turned legs and curved 
stretchers, cane-backed chairs of high decorative 
quality, looking-glasses of walnut, chairs with Span- 
ish feet, and one with an early crude cabriole. Here 
we see exemplified the full effect of the foreign influ- 
ences, Flemish, Spanish, and Portuguese, which led 
rapidly to a complete change in furniture structure, 
the first step of which was the introduction of curved 
structural members. 


Teck D = FF 1t0705R 93 


The ‘“‘Cain chairs, Black chairs” are of the order 
of those advertised in the Boston Weekly News Letter 
on March 6, 1732, to be sold at auction along with 
other articles, the notice accompanied by the state- 
ment, “Buyers may depend upon having fair play, 
good liquor, and if they please good bargains.’’’ 
Similar chairs were among the effects of Charles 
Paxton of Boston advertised (1746): ““A Fashion- 
able Crimson Damask Furniture [bed] with counter- 
pain and two setts of window curtains and vallans 
of the same damask. Eight Crimson China Cases 
for ditto, one easy Chair and cushion same damask 
and Case for ditto. Twelve Walnut Tree Chairs, 
India Backs, finished cane, with sundry other val- 
uable household furniture.” In this is an interesting 
note on the method used to preserve the damask 
coverings from the wear and tear of ordinary use; 
and it is illuminating also in showing that caned 
chairs were still used in 1746, many years after their 
greatest vogue, which was chiefly before 1725. 

The curtains and some of the chair cushions are of 
the painted India cotton, popular in the seventeenth 
century and continuing in general favor in the eigh- 
teenth. With the extensive use of printed fabrics, 
these India cottons formed part of a large manufac- 
ture of printed reproductions in Portugal. 

On the walls hang some excellent early prints. A 
large one of Harvard College issued in 1726 gives us 
a very good idea of the degree of luxury existing in 
Cambridge at that time. The earliest view of Yale 
(c. 1745) and some portraits of well-known men, Sir 

1 Auctions had the same fascination then as now; about this time their 


popularity aroused a tirade in the New York papers against the amount 
of time wasted by those habitually attending them. 


94 THE AMERICAN WING 


William Pepperell, Reverend Henry Caner, and Hon- 
orable Jonathan Belcher are appropriate in this room. 

Some pieces of Holland Delft reecho the Oriental 
note of the curtains and of the carving in the chairs. 
Silver of the early eighteenth century: shows the 
beginning of a greater elaboration in shape and deco- 
ration than has yet appeared, and this greater 
subtlety is noted in the fine looking-glasses, an impor- 
tant element in the decorative scheme. 

The Delft tiles about the fireplace, painted with 
scenes from the Bible, introduce a note very usual in 
the houses of the period. 

The andirons and the iron and brass candlestand 
are well wrought (the latter signed by its maker, 


Gerrish). 


ROQM.. F:'R OM. W.0.07,035,e 
L:O N GY. 1320 AGN 


This room from Woodbury, formerly East Woods, 
Long Island, the gift of Mrs. Robert W. de Forest, 
represents a country home of a well-to-do Long 
Islander of the middle of the century, and was built 
by John Hewlett, 2nd, captain in the local military 
company, after he had sold his Rockaway home in 
1739. A secret stairway led from a concealed panel 
in the rear of the closet to the left of the cupboard, up 
over the cupboard and into the attic as well as down 
into the cellar, the ends being hidden by trap doors. 
Such a stairway is characteristic of other dwellings of 
the period on the north shore of Long Island, and 1s a 
reminder of those Colonial days when smuggling and 
the evasion of the king’s excisemen were little 
frowned upon by the community at large. 


ANVTSI DNOT ‘AUNAGOOM WOU WOOU SY ‘Old 





96 THE “AM ER LOAN Wee 


The paneling is an interesting example of Renais- 
sance architectural detail as executed by the tools of 
the country carpenter (fig. 45). Here we have pilas- 
ters, cornices, and mouldings combined with raised 
bolection panels and a bolection fireplace moulding. 
The work would seem to be that of an elderly joiner 
of the middle of the eighteenth century whose famili- 
arity was chiefly with the better work of thirty years 
before, employing the Georgian composition and 
detail, which he had carried in his memory from some 
fine house in New York. 

The fireplace is of generous proportions and the 
raised panels above it with good bolection-moulding 
are flanked by short pilasters which rest on nothing. 
These support a cornice and below it a series of 
mouldings and cut-out work which take the place of a 
frieze. 

The “beaufatt” with a crudely carved shell is a 
characteristic bit of its period. The other three walls 
of the room have been restored from photographs, 
although the double door opposite the fireplace 1s 
original. The woodwork has been painted a blue- 
gray which Peter Kalm, in his account of his visit to 
New York and vicinity in 1748, mentions as being 
the usual color for interior use. 

The Dutch tiles around the fireplace pleasantly re- 
call those days when the Bible played a larger part in 
the lives of the people than today, and the long even- 
ings when the little children were taught their biblical 
lore from the crudely drawn pictures of scriptural 
scenes before the fire-lit chimney-pieces. 

Tiles came into rather common use here toward the 
close of the first quarter of the eighteenth century. 
“ Several Sorts of Neat Square Dutch Tiles to be set in 


Pebie leh ee bal O° Os k 97 


Chimnies. To be Sold by Mr. Richard Draper, at the 
lower end of Cornhill Boston” were advertised in the 
Boston News Letter of May 6, 1725. 

The tiles we are seeing are of the particular kind 
offered for sale by Robert Crommelin in the New 
York Gazette of December 19, 1748, whose frequent 
advertisements generally contained as well a long list 
of titles of books printed in Latin: ‘‘a parcel of hand- 
some scripture Tiles with the Chapter and some plain 
white ditto.” Other tiles advertised by this dealer 
were “Plain white and Sculpture Tiles, handsome | 
blue and white flower’d Tiles,” “Green and yellow 
Hearth Tiles” (1752). While the hearthstone in this 
room is an original limestone one obtained from an 
old house in the vicinity of Woodbury, many a hearth 
was made gay or picturesque with “red and blue 
hearth tiles.”’ 

Maple and other soft-wood furniture finds a place 
here. The painted kas of pine brings in the Dutch 
flavor, which was not lacking on western Long Island 
and which is echoed in the biblical tiles and in the 
leather-covered, brass-bound Dutch Bible on the 
table. The lowboy, chairs, tables, and looking-glass 
reiterate the Dutch or Flemish influences which came 
into England with William of Orange and were con- 
tinued in popularity under Queen Anne. They are 
more or less provincial pieces but they show the 
transition into the style which is epitomized in the 
rooms on the floor below. We have here the simplest 
form of the cabriole legs and the beginning of struc- 
tural curves creeping in amidst a group of furniture 
which retains in its rectangular construction, if in 
few other details, the ancient tradition which was 
coming to an end. 


98 THE AMERICAN WING 


The blue linen curtains and the material for some 
of the chair seats were for many years in a house in 
this country. This linen might well have been made 
in this vicinity, as in 1761 the wife of John Haugan 
advertised that she ‘stamps linen china blue or deep 
blue, or any other colour that gentlemen and Ladies 
fancies.” 

In the ‘“‘beaufatt”’ are a number of pieces of Eng- 
lish and Dutch Delft ware of the kind that was being 
imported in large quantities at that time. A close 
examination of one of the English dishes will show 
how closely allied it is with the pattern on the kas. 


ie FE BE i He Be ie he Be aie He ee He se he le alee he a 


SLL 
“Hie ie ee a ee aie he ae ee Se aie he ale ae ie ae le he 


Second Floor 
BR Te ae Re eae oth he a a hee ae ts ae i te ates ae 


THE SECOND PERIOD of early American 
art from the first quarter of the eighteenth 
century to the Early Republic 


Hee te ee HE early American utilitarian arts of 
Re He He ee the second period express an utterly 
eke T 3 ee different artistic impulse from that 
He He He see which animated the work of the pre- 
She ae ae ie ie ceding period. It may be characterized 
as of baroque, in contradistinction to Gothic, in- 
spiration. 

In Italy in the late sixteenth century there had 
grown up an artistic expression which may be con- 
sidered as the ultimate development of the classical 
Roman tradition, which had always held considerable 
sway in that country. The Renaissance interest in 
classical prototypes, broadening as it grew, had 
reached a great refinement at the hands of an un- 
usually large and competent group of artists. From 
this extreme refinement there resulted a reaction 
which, begun by Michelangelo, grew into a definite 
and powerful influence. Its basis was the use of 
classic forms as they were then known, yet a use 
which employed these forms somewhat regardless of 
their original functions. Then became general a skil- 
ful and studied design in terms of classic elements, 
using these elements to achieve effects primarily deco- 
rative and only secondarily structural. 

99 


IOO T‘H E AXM E-ReECoAUIN] Walshe 


It will be readily realized what a complete diver- 
gence in point of view is recorded in this change from 
a primarily structural art like the Gothic. It argued 
as a basis of criticism whether or not the aesthetic re- 
action was pleasant and satisfying. Its inevitable re- 
sult in practice was to encourage an infinite variety of 
expression to appeal to widely varying tastes. 

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the 
development of the baroque school on the continent 
of Europe resulted in an elaborate and complicated 
type popularly known as “rococo,” a word derived 
from a contraction of rocaille et coquille (rock and 
shell), these natural forms being the basis of some of 
the more extravagant decoration in: Italy.> ies 
latter school carried the baroque method of design 
and decoration to immoderate limits in many cases, 
but in its finer use in France and England it resulted 
in a highly ordered and sumptuous style peculiarly 
and exactly adapted to the taste of the period. This 
development of the rococo in the eighteenth century 
is the predominating influence in the decorative or 
utilitarian arts of the second period of the American 
Colonies. 

When this full Late Renaissance influence was in- 
corporated in England into architectural work with- 
out any survival of indigenous Gothic feeling, we find 
in general a more conservative use of it than on the 
continent. The work of Inigo Jones and Christopher 
Wren, its prime exponents, seldom went to the limit 
set by their continental predecessors. The former 
architect was far in advance of his conservative coun- 
trymen; indeed, it was not until the latter architect’s 
tremendous building activity at the end of the seven- 
teenth century had given a widespread example that 


pera O Ne D ab eeO Orr IO] 


the taste for the new style in architecture became 
fixed. 

The first examples in house architecture of the new 
mode began to appear in America early in the eigh- 
teenth century and by the middle of that century had 
become firmly established. The variety in general 
arrangement was not great and the characteristic 
features may be briefly summarized. 

There was first a symmetrical plan. A hallway 
running through the center of the house contained the 
stairway, which was treated as an important feature. 
This hallway was usually flanked on either side by 
two rooms. The second floor repeated this arrange- 
ment. There were sometimes two, sometimes four 
chimneys; if only two, the fireplaces were set either 
on the inside walls of the rooms, or diagonally when 
occasionally end chimneys were used; if four, the fire- 
place was on the end wall. This is a simple statement 
of the most typical house plan of the second period, of 
which numerous variations occurred, following the 
custom of particular localities or the greater or less 
elaboration consistent with the owner’s wealth or 
style of living. 

The exteriors preserved the symmetrical arrange- 
ment of the plan. The most elaborate detail was con- 
centrated about the main entrance door, which was 
flanked by windows, regularly spaced. The windows 
of the second floor followed the placing of those be- 
low, while the line between wall and roof was strongly 
marked by a cornice, based on classical forms and 
more or less elaborated. Dormer windows lighted the 
attic, and in their most elaborate form were treated 
with pediments, pilasters, and other classic deriva- 
tives. 


12 T He AY MER) ©) ACN SeWieleaie 


The interiors, with which we are particularly con- 
cerned, possessed the conscious effect of studied de- 
sign. They differed widely in their individual treat- 
ment, as will be seen in the Museum examples. In 
general, however, they possessed the same basis of 
design, the classic orders, whose essence is a vertical 
support resting on a base and upholding an entabla- 
ture. The paneling of straightforward stile and rail 
type rests on a low base and emphasizes the strength 
of the lower portion by a chair-rail with panels below. 
The panels usually have raised fields and are set 
within mouldings. The cornice preserves the general 
form of the classic, but the frieze and architrave are 
usually omitted except where pilasters occur. 

The more general usage in this period, as in the 
earlier, was a paneled fireplace wall, with the other 
walls plastered above a paneled wainscot. Pilasters 
frequently were used on this paneled wall and omitted 
on the other walls. There were many variations, 
however, as the Museum rooms show, some rooms 
wholly paneled, some paneled only as high as the 
chair-rail, some paneled to the ceiling on the fireplace 
side alone. 

The decoration of these rooms was concentrated at 
certain points, usually following classic tradition. 
The cornice might be enriched with modillions, den- 
tils, egg-and-dart, leaf, bead-and-reel, or other mod- 
eled decoration of classic inspiration. The overman- 
tel was simply paneled, or treated with an enframe- 
ment surmounted by a pediment. The mantelpiece 
was often the most enriched part of the woodwork, 
with carving on mouldings and frieze. The door and 
window openings were surrounded with simple archi- 
traves. Applied relief decoration, carved from wood 


SE COMNND 410% K 103 


or moulded in composition, was used very generally. 
An example of this is shown in the room from Phila- 
delphia. Fretwork on chair-rails and baseboard was 
striking in effect, and more or less elaborately mod- 
eled plasterwork ornamented the ceilings of some of 
the finest houses. In fact, every method of adding to 
the rich decoration of interior architecture, carried to 
such perfection in England, was known and attempted 
in this country. 

The style of living in the Colonies never approached 
the magnificent or palatial usage of the old country, 
so that it is unfair to compare the average Colonial 
interior, even of a fine type, with the best English 
Georgian examples created for royalty or the nobility. 
But in a somewhat reduced scale and in more con- 
servative taste the finest rooms in America were 
peers of rooms of similar character in England. In 
the South, where greater wealth and a more spacious 
manner of living prevailed, the pretentious interior 
was more usual than in New England. On the other 
hand, the houses of the rich merchants of Philadel- 
phia, New York, Newport, Boston, and Portsmouth 
equaled any of the fine rooms in Virginia and Mary- 
land, if in some cases they did not actually surpass 
them. Among the wealthy colonists there was a 
generally high standard of taste, and the social life of 
this group kept them in close touch with changing 
fashion abroad. 

The question naturally arises as to whence our 
housewrights obtained their knowledge and the scale 
drawings for much of the finer woodwork turned out 
in this period. Books of architecture were rather in- 
frequently advertised by the booksellers. They prob- 
ably consisted of the Batty-Langley books from 


TO4 eH Ee oAsM PEt Ro 1 Cela Nye lee 


1729, Ware’s complete Body of Architecture, 1756, 
the various works of Abraham Swan, 1745, and the 
volumes by William Pain from 1758. ““Spelman’s Pal- 
ladio, Londinensis, or the London Art of Building 
with Cuts” and ‘Gibbs’ Architecture in Sheets” 
were advertised here in 1748 and 1751 respectively. 
The earliest book on architecture of any importance 
issued in this country: is the ‘British Architect or, 
the Builders Treasury of Stair-Cases, by Abraham 
Swan, architect of Philadelphia, printed by R. Bell 
for John Norman, Architect Engraver, M, DCC, 
LXV 

No more convincing testimony of the real desire 
for knowledge, the interest and pride in accomplish- 
ment, of oureighteenth-century workmen can be found 
than in scanning the list of “Names of Encour- 
agers” printed in this volume, including as it did 
those of sixty-two master builders, one hundred and 
eleven house carpenters, two plasterers, two painters, 
two cabinet-makers, one tallow chandler, one ship 
joiner, one tanner, three gentlemen, and two mer- 
chants. 

Even more than the architecture, the furniture 
which went into these rooms bespoke the full adop- 
tion of the baroque thesis in support of a more refined 
taste and an ordered social usage. The simplicity of 
structure which had characterized the furniture of the 
earlier times developed into a finished cabinet-work, 
and the decorative element predominated over the 
more elemental structural necessity. : 

When we come into this period of developed stylis- 


1 Some of these interesting volumes and many others are found in the 
fine library of architecture and design gathered by Ogden Codman of 
this city, and placed on loan by him in the Print Department of the 
Museum, 





FIG. 46. HIGHBOY AND LOWBOY VENEERED WITH WAL- 
NUT, INLAID, CARVED, AND GILDED. A FINE EARLY 
USE OF CABRIOLE LEGS AND SCROLLED PEDI- 
MENT SHOWING ROCOCO INFLUENCE 


\ 


106 THE. AM Bok 1: Gea Ni avy ee 


tic expression, there are two divisions which we must 
make upon a basis of quality. On the one hand, 
there are the furniture and other utilitarian arts of 
high quality, approaching very closely to or equaling 
the accomplishment of European craftsmen. These 
must be judged by comparison with the high stand- 
ards set by the latter. There 1s, on the other hand, a 
simple vernacular type, usually provincial in origin 
or made for people of modest means, which follows in 
some ways the form, proportion, and decorative 
arrangement of the fully developed styles but 1s sim- 
plified and often made of less fine materials. These 
two groups should not be judged by the same stand- 
ards of comparison, but each taken in connection 
with the ensemble of which it was made to form a 
part. 

In the transitional types of furniture shown on the 
third floor of the wing were seen the beginnings of the 
use of structural curves. Just as the straight line in 
general characterized the structure of the earlier 
group, the curved line is characteristic of this second 
group. 

The period has frequently been called the cabriole 
period, and this is no misnomer, since the cabriole leg 
(figs. 46-50) found almost universal employment on 
all types of furniture. Tables, chairs, chests of draw- 
ers, desks, beds, and both highboys and lowboys were 
all made with cabriole legs. The improved ability of 
the cabinet-maker rendered unnecessary the use of 
stretchers, giving full effect to the strong curve of the 
supporting member. The cabriole leg was finished 
with various kinds of feet. The simplest form was the 
Dutch foot, but the whole list of feet would include 
the snake, the slipper, the grooved (reminiscent of 


Sein ClOgN De Fk LIO7O RK Toy] 


the Spanish), and different sorts of ball and claw 
(figs. 46-50). 

Chairs show more clearly than most other furni- 
ture forms the changes in style. In the general devel- 
opment of the chairs we have the story of this change. 
The transitional chairs on the third floor show a 
carved cresting to the back rising higher than the 





FIG. 47. JAPANNED LOWBOY, AN EXAMPLE OFA 
PAINTED TREATMENT VERY POPULAR IN 
THE EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 


back-posts, a treatment which led the way for a solid 
cresting curving down without break into the back- 
posts (fig. 25). Soon a solid splat appears, inspired no 
doubt by the intermediary splat which had appeared 
in some of the cane-backed chairs. This splat soon 
took on a violin or vase form which the contemporary 
popularity of Chinese porcelains no doubt fostered. 
From these shapes were predicated, to the furniture 
designer’s taste, harmonious curves in the back-posts 


108 THE YAM E RAD C ASN EME ine 


which should compose together the voids and solids 
of the design. The result was a chair with solid splat 
back, graceful in a design of related curves, and ren- 
dered comfortable by a slight reverse or spoon curve 
from seat to cresting. With this was combined a seat 
of straight sides or one following a general horseshoe 
form. Cabriole legs were the rule and different sorts 
of feet appear (fig. 49). 

The carved decoration is sparingly used, first on the 
knees of the cabriole leg and at the center of the crest- 
ing. Then the splat shows slight enrichment, particu- 
larly that of the violin form. These chairs of the 
earlier cabriole type, which date in the second quarter 
of the century, are usually of walnut, the splats solid 
and carving sparingly used. The next distinct step 
in the decoration is the piercing of the splat into an 
openwork design, which adds much to the delicacy of 
scale (fig. 50). 

The development in England of a highly trained 
group of cabinet-makers and furniture designers had 
resulted in the publication of books of furniture de- 
signs, of use both to the craftsman and to the con-_ 
noisseur. Among craftsmen, the name of Chippen- 
dale stands out as the most important influence in the 
field, and under it is grouped the furniture of a whole 
period. In Chippendale’s Gentleman’s and Cabinet- 
-maker’s Director, published first in 1752, is shown a 
great variety of furniture form and decoration.’ To 

1In this connection an important group of drawings in the Print 
Department of the Museum may be studied. It consists of two hun- 
dred and seven sheets in pencil, pen, and wash, on the back of whese 
eighteenth-century mounts appear the legends: “Original Drawings 
Chipp. Vol. I” and “Vol. II.” Of these drawings one hundred and 
seventy-eight correspond, though in the reverse, to the plates in one or 
other of the 1754 and 1762 editions of Chippendale’s Director. We have 


here an opportunity to observe the methods of design and the careful 
study which went into the making of furniture, 


Seer ON De EL Oris 10g 


him, therefore, are credited many of the innovations 
which came into general use about this time. 

Among these, as applied to chairs, is the developed 
use of the bow-shaped cresting. Eliminating the 
dipped curve, which ran without break into the back- 





FIG. 48. WALNUT SOFA MADE IN PHILADELPHIA 
ABOUT 1735 


posts, this bow cresting turns upward at its outer 
ends and rests upon the back-posts in many examples. 
This change in an important line of the chair-back, 
coupled with the full elaboration of the openwork 
splat which Chippendale and his following accom- 
plished, resulted in an entirely different chair from 
the earlier Georgian type. Its seat was usually 


Teh T.H Ev AME R 1GsAN, PWateNeG 


straight-sided, its legs cabriole or straight. Decora- 
tive carving occurs on cresting, splat, legs, and feet. 
Adaptations of the form are found in upholstered 
easy chairs both with and without wings (fig. 54), 
though most marked in the side-chairs. 

Highboys and lowboys with cabriole legs run all 
the way from simple unadorned walnut to highly 
carved mahogany (figs. 46 and 55). Walnut highboys 
with flat tops or with scrolled pediments were varied 
with veneers and bandings, carved ornaments on the 
small drawer at top and bottom, or inlay OUStabeo 
other forms on drawer fronts and sides. Mahogany 
highboys might be as plain as the form allowed or 
they might have scrolled pediments accompanied by 
much carved enrichment. These pieces, too, were 
made in maple, curly and plain, following the regular 
formula but partaking of a provincial flavor. The 
group of Philadelphia-made mahogany highboys is 
the most elaborate in decoration of any found in the 
Colonies. 

Much of the social life of the colonists centered 
about the tea-table—the realization of this fact gives 
point to the irritation which led to the Boston Tea 
Party. Large and small tip-top tables on tripod ped- 
estals, small kettle stands, and tray-topped, four- 
legged tea-tables (figs. 52, 56, and 75) were all made 
for this purpose. Often parlors and bedrooms con- 
tained several tea-tables, especially those of the tilt- 
top variety, which when not in use could be lined 
along the walls. In 1737 “Tea-Table Bolts” were 
advertised in Philadelphia, where our finest tea- 
tables were made, examples of which may be seen in 
the main gallery and in the Philadelphia room. These 
with their rich woods, covered with the dainty and 


See CON, De Ls OTOLR II! 


gay little teapots and cups similar to those arranged 
in the window shelves of the main gallery, gave a 
beautiful variation of color to the rooms. Their dis- 
appearance from use when our Colonial women 
agreed to give up tea caused many a sigh, as evi- 


denced in A Lady’s Adieu to her Tea-Table, which 





FIG. 49. WALNUT CORNER CHAIR AND SIDE-CHAIR MADE 
IN PHILADELPHIA. CABRIOLE LEGS AND VASE- 
SHAPED SPLATS 


appeared in several newspapers just before the out- 
break of the Revolution: 


FAREWELL the Tea-board with your gaudy attire, 
Ye cups and ye saucers that I did admire; 

To my cream pot and tongs I now bid adieu; 

That pleasure’s all fled that I once found in you. 
Farewell pretty chest that so lately did shine, 

With hyson and congo and best double fine; 

Many a sweet moment by you I have sat, 

Hearing girls and old maids to tattle and chat; 

And the spruce coxcomb laugh at nothing at all, 


iit. TH EF AIM’ R Ral CAACN payee Nae 


Only some silly work that might happen to fall. 
No more shall my teapot so generous be 

In filling the cups with this pernicious tea, 

For Ill fill it with water and drink out the same, 
Before Ill lose LIBERTY that dearest name, 
Because I am taught (and believe it is fact) 
That our ruin is aimed at in a late act, 

Of imposing a duty on all foreign Teas, 

Which detestable stuff we can quit when we please. 
LIBERTY’S the Goddess that I do adore, 

And I’]l maintain her right until my last hour, 
Before she shall part I will die in the cause, 

For [’ll never be govern’d by tyranny’s laws. 


Card-tables with a hinged flap formed a con- 
siderable output from the furniture shop. Drop-leaf 
tables for dining-rooms were combined with. smaller 
tables to form banquet-boards. Large and small side- 
tables with wood or marble tops served as sideboards 
or pier tables in drawing-rooms where fine candelabra 
and porcelains were displayed. | 

Scrutoires of the slant-topped sort were the most 
popular, both with and without bookcase tops. 
Chests of drawers and chests-on-chests were a part 
of the regular bedroom equipment in every well- 
furnished house. Beds were made with four tall posts 
which supported a tester and were hung with cur- 
tains. 

A method of decoration popular at the time was 
painting to imitate Chinese lacquer (fig. 47). Look- 
ing-glasses, tables, trays, highboys, and lowboys 
were at times so painted. There were several vari- 
eties—plain black with gold designs and an imita- 
tion of tortoise-shell with raised designs in gold and 
red being the most popular. Newspaper advertise- 
ments tell of printed designs for use in Japanning, as 





FIG. $0. ARMCHAIR OF PHILADELPHIA MAKE 

FINELY CARVED AND UNUSUAL IN COMBINING 

THE OPENWORK SPLAT WITH THE EARLY CURVED 
CRESTING 


tig. T H-E “AM E Ril CAN) Wellness 


the process was called; these printed designs were 
glued on to the wood and over them were applied the 
gesso to obtain relief, the gold, and the color. This 
fashion followed that set at the close of the seven- 
teenth century by the popularity in England of col- 
lecting Oriental art, chiefly porcelain and lacquers. 

The chief method of decoration, however, on all of 
this furniture was carving. The type and quality 
differentiate it considerably from the earlier work. It 
employs naturalistic forms such as leaves, shells, 
ribbons, rope-and-tassels combined in an original 
and gay manner. Reverse curves and grouped C 
scrolls tie the composition together in combination 
with the peculiar rococo detail termed “coquille,” a 
derivative of the use of shells in baroque ornament. 
The modeling is plastic and subtle gradations be- 
tween surfaces give a quality at times almost of 
bronze; the variety of motifs and their combination 
are infinite. 

Chippendale and his followers in order to stir the 
fancy of their somewhat blasé clients had drawn some 
of their suggestions from Chinese and Gothic sources. 
Fretwork of these two types, singly or combined, 
bamboo turnings, or grouped Gothic colonnettes give 
an exotic touch to much of the furniture influenced 
by this school. 

The block front, the bow, and the serpentine are 
three methods of breaking up the flat surfaces of case 
furniture. The block-front group is one of the hand- 
somest of the American Chippendale developments 
(figs. 58 and $9). Although of European origin, its 
perfection came at the hands of American craftsmen. 
This block-front form consists of a sunken central 


portion flanked by raised blocks. The blocks and 


Sore. OeN jl)? eb Ee Ov OcR IIl§ 


sinkages are plain or are finished at the top with a 
shell form. John Goddard of Newport, working in 
the third quarter of the eighteenth century, used this 
shell blocking more effectively probably and in more 
finished ways than any other maker, although very 
handsome pieces of block-front furniture were made 





FIG. St. WALNUT DESK, INLAID, WITH 
CARVED CABRIOLE LEGS 


in Massachusetts and Connecticut, the latter fre- 
quently of cherry. 

On chests of drawers, scrutoires, chests-on-chests, 
and such case furniture, the bracket foot was em- 
ployed equally with the short cabriole with ball and 
claw. The bracket was either straight or curved and 
modeled. 

Many of the elements of furniture design are found 
at a reduced scale on the cases of the tall clocks of the 
period. The scrolled pediment with finials, the quar- 
ter columns, the bracket feet, fretwork, carving, and 


PIG TH E A MOE RILC ANY Wil WG 


other enrichment, all contributed to make clock 
cases a distinguished branch of the cabinet-maker’s 
trade (fig. 57). 

Not only were these fine cases made of mahogany 
or walnut, of maple or cherry, but the process of ja- 
panning was applied to them. Such an elaborate 
clock is described in the prospectus for a lottery “ set 
forth [1732] by Isaac Anthony of Newport, gold- 
smith.” The fourth prize was a “very handsome 
new eight day clock which shows the Moon's age, 
Strikes the Quarters on very tunable bells and is in a 
good japanned Case, in imitation of Tortoise Shell 
and gold, Valued at £65.” 

For its earliest clocks, New York apparently relied 
upon importations. In 1734 were offered for sale at 
the home of John Bell “eight day clocks with Japan 
Cases,” but by 1747 appears the advertisement, 
“Watches and clocks carefully and expeditiously 
made and mended by Carden Proctor, living in the 
House where Mr. Henry deForest removed from 
opposite to Mr. James Daurcey’s.”’ 

In the furniture of this period, therefore, from the 
time when the obviously rectangular construction 
and turned decoration were superseded by the use of 
curved structural members and a more delicate orna- 
mentation by carving or inlay, we have a free expres- 
sion of the baroque impulse expressed 1n rococo form 
in furniture design. A use of natural forms in decora- 
tion, informally composed, an inventiveness in the de- 
sign of new articles for household use, and a constant 
change in fashionable demand render this whole 
period one of the most brilliant in the history of deco- 
rative art. This is true not only in England and 
France but in America as well. It is part of the spirit 


See CrOON Del e090 RR Lin 


of the time and in keeping with an established social 
structure which felt itself secure after many years of 
change and instability. 

The newspapers of the cities from the second quar- 
ter of the eighteenth century on contain a great many 





FIG. $2. TIP-TOP TABLE OF WALNUT 
SECOND QUARTER OF THE EIGH- 
REBNIH CENTURY 


advertisements of cabinet-makers and their wares. 
Some idea of the scope of the activities of these men 
may be conveyed by the quotation of a typical and 
somewhat lengthy advertisement of 1762: 


“John Brinner, cabinet and chairmaker from London at the 
Sign of the Chair, opposite Flatten Barrack Hill, in the Broad- 
Way, New York, where every article in the Cabinet, Chaif= 
making, Carving and Gilding Business, is enacted on the most 


118 THR AMC ERR BOeAUNe sWWodenN ee 


reasonable Terms, with the Utmost Neatness and Punctuality. 
He carves all Sorts of Architectural, Gothic, and Chinese Chim- 
ney-Pieces, Glass and Picture Frames, Slab Frames, Girondels, 
Chandaliers, and all kinds of Mouldings and Frontispieces, etc., 
etc. Desk and Book Cases, Library Bock Cases, writing and 
Reading Tables, Study Tables, China Shelves and Cases, Com- 
mode and Plain Chest of Drawers, Gothic and Chinese chairs; 
all sorts of plain or ornamental Chairs, Sofa Beds, Sofa Settees, 
Couch and easy Chairs, Frames, all kinds of Field Bedsteads, etc. 

“NB. He has brought over from London six Artificers, well 
skilled in the above branches.” 


The variety of Brinner’s work possibly explains the 
source of the beautiful carvings on the overmantels 
in the Van Cortlandt house and the old Beekman 
house. 

Among the many New York cabinet-makers the 
most picturesque was Marinus Willett, whose furnt- 
ture, if any of it is still in existence, must make to all 
Americans that same appeal which attaches to the 
silver on this floor made by Paul Revere, whose 
thrilling ride has been immortalized by Longfellow. 
Born in Jamaica, Long Island, in 1740, and a great- 
grandson of that Thomas Willett who was the first 
mayor of New York, his military activities led him to 
take part in the expedition against Fort Ticonderoga 
in 1758. He was long one of the leading spirits in the 
Sons of Liberty in New York. Our only knowledge of 
his having been a cabinet-maker 1s found in the fol- 
lowing advertisement, which repeatedly appeared in 


the New York papers of 1773-74: 


“MARINUS WILLETT removed his Vendue store to the 
house lately occupied by Weldron & Cornell next door to Abra- 
ham Lott’s Esq. Treas. Every article in the. . . CABINET 
or CHAIRWAY may be had on the shortest notice and executed 
in the best manner by Willet and Peasey, at the said Vendue 


FIG. 53. 


Pi he oop 





CARD-TABLES SHOWING CHIPPEN- 
DALE INFLUENCE 


esa 


120 THE OAM ERD CAEN” Wolo 


store, at the sign of the Clothes press near the new Oswego 
market, at the upper end of Maiden-Lane, who will take dry 
goods in pay. 

“NB. There is on hand at either of the above places an 
assortment of choice mahogany furniture. ‘i 


Willett’s career as a cabinet-maker ended with 
that inspiring scene memorialized by an elaborate 
tablet erected on the corner of Broad and Beaver 
Streets, which pictures Willett, on June 6, 1775, 1n 
the act of seizing the wagons containing the extra 
arms of the British regiment which was embarking to 
reinforce the British army at Boston. A portrait of 
his wife and child by John Vanderlyn hangs in Gal- 
lery 16. 

We have mentioned above a difference in quality 
between the finer furniture of the cities and the sim- 
pler furniture of the outlying communities, or that 
used by persons of small means and few pretensions. 
There may be seen in certain of the rooms on the 
third floor many examples of this simpler work which 
for want of a better name may be called “provincial.” 
It followed, in general, fashions that in the cities had 
become passé, and its materials were often the local 
nut and fruit woods which were available. Such fur- 
niture in its very lack of finesse and sophistication 
often possesses a truer flavor of its locality and a 
stronger reflection of the life of its owners than do the 
finer pieces, since the latter approach very closely to 
the standards of contemporary English work. 

In this provincial furniture we may see the min- 
gling of styles and the introduction of elements whose 
occasional inappropriateness serves to give it a naive 
and pleasant character of its own. The group of 
characteristic Windsor chairs exhibits much of this 


Selec ON: DT Pe P2OpO IQ] 


quality. The woods are local—oak, ash, hickory, and 
pine—combined in different parts, and the design is 
little influenced by the stylistic quality of the finer 
furniture. 

These Windsor chairs became popular in the 
second period, “Philadelphia made Windsor chairs”’ 
being advertised in New York in 1763. Their original 
purpose was for outdoor use, as is shown in an adver- 
tisement which appeared in the New York Journal of 
February 13, 1766, accompanied by a rude woodcut 
of a Windsor chair, “To be Sold by Andrew Gautier 
—A large and neat Assortment of Windsor Chairs, 
made in the best and neatest Manner, and well 
painted,. . . fit for Piazza or Gardens,'—Chil- 
dren’s dining and low chairs, etc.” Windsor chairs 


1 Many of the Colonial gardens were very elaborate and skilfully laid 
out. Those of Peter Faneuil and Thomas Hancock of Boston, Metcalf 
Bowler of Portsmouth, R. I., Samuel Powel of Philadelphia, and count- 
less others were famous. Landscape gardeners from abroad advertised 
here along the lines of the following, which appeared in the New York 
Journal of August 11, 1768: “Thomas Vallentine, bred under the ablest 
Master in Ireland, who for some Years after his apprenticeship conducted 
the Gardening Business for the Right Honourable, the Earl of Belvedere, 
a Nobleman remarkable for elegant Taste, extensive Gardens and Plan- 
tations, the major Part of which were made immediately under said 
Gardner’s Direction, during his Service with him; and has been after- 
wards employed by several of the Nobility and Gentry, to lay out their 
Gardens and Improvements. He also surveys land, makes Copies and 
Traces Maps, draws Designs for Gardens, Plantations, Stores, green 
Houses, forcing Frames, etc., etc., and will execute the Plans, if required. 
He is willing to attend any Gentleman’s Gardens, within ten or twelve 
miles of this city, a day or two in the week, and give such Directions as 
are necessary for completing and keeping the same in Proper Order. He 
has sufficient Certificates setting forth his Character and Abilities, and 
can be further recommended if required by a Gentleman near this City, 

Among the finest gardens of the Colonies which still remain more or 
less in their original form are those at Middleton house near Charleston, 
South Carolina, Hampton at Tanson, Maryland, and Wye house on the 
eastern shore of Maryland. These are planned on elaborate lines and 
were laid out by landscape architects. 


22 THE “A -M’E:R 1G AUN SEW 


were therefore painted against the weather. The pre- 
vailing colors were gray and green. 

These chairs later came into general use in the 
humbler homes. A good description of the furnish- 
ings of these is found in the Voyage aux Etats-Unis 
by Moreau de Saint Méry, one-time president of the 
Electors of France, later émigré to Philadelphia. He 
noted that the ordinary wooden chair was “painted 
green like those in the gardens in France.” 

The active and acquisitive spirit of interest in 
artistic accomplishment, exemplified in the large de- 
mand for and supply of fine furniture, is vividly repre- 
sented in the lesser arts of the metalworker, the 
potter, and the weaver. These lent gayety of color 
and variation in texture to the interiors whose more 
solid elements were so adequately supplied by the 
builder-architect and the cabinet-maker. 

As the eighteenth century rolled on, the demand 
for beautiful imported fabrics increased. Early in the 
period there continued a considerable use of velvets 
which combined well with needlework of different 
sorts. To these were added many other textiles as 
fashion became more insistent. The advertisements 
of upholsterers became rather common. One of 
these, appearing in the Philadelphia American 
Weekly Messenger of October 31, 1734, indicates 
that beds were placed in parlors, a seventeenth- 
century custom which still survived: 

“Next door to Caleb Ransteed’s in Market Street, Philadel- 
phia, all sorts of Upholsterers’ work is performed, viz., beds 
after the most fashionable and plain way to take off the wood- 
work, settee beds, and easie chair beds, commodious for lower 
rooms [models of which may be seen], field beds, pallet beds, cur- 


tains for coaches, easie chairs, cushions, etc. reasonable and with 
expedition by William Atlee. 


SepeGeO NDS bE Ors 123 


“N.B. Any person willing to have a bed stand in an alcove, 
which is both warm and handsom may have the same hung and 
_ finished in the most elegant manner customary in the best houses 


in England.”’ ; 


In New York we find Stephen Callow advertising | 
frequently in 1749 and for twenty years thereafter as 





FIG, $4. ARMCHAIR MADE IN PHILADELPHIA 
_ AND WING-CHAIR 
SHOWING CHIPPENDALE INFLUENCE 


“Performing all Sorts of Upholsterers work, Beds, 
Chairs, Seat-tees &c. and likewise hangs rooms with 
Paper, or Stuff in the newest Fashion. N.B. He also 
hangs Bells in the best manner.” Other advertise- 
ments give us clues as to the fashions in curtains and 
draperies. , 

New York was spending freely for interior decora- 
tion in the decade 1760-70 and gave enough patron- 
age to employ besides Callow two other upholsterers, 


“Richard Wenman, Upholsterer” (1766), who adver- 


I24 THE AGM EB RAL CeAUNS Wel eee 


tised that he “‘has likewise to sell Tossels and Line for 
window curtains,” and in 1767 Joseph Cox, “‘ Uphol- 
sterer from London at the Royal-Bed and Star in 
Wall-street undertakes to furnish gentleman’s Houses 
with all Kinds of Furniture, in the upholstery and 
Cabinet way, at the Cheapest Rates; He continues to 
make and sell, canopy, Festoon, Field, Tent and all 
sorts of Beds; likewise Venetian, Festoon and 
Drapery, Window Curtains, Sofas, French Chairs, 
Settees, Couches, Easy chairs, commodes and Back, 
Stools, in the neatest manner; He also has to sell, on 
the lowest terms, worsted Damasks, Moreens, Har- 
rateens, of all colours. . . . All Sorts of Fringes, 
Bed Laces, Lines and Tossels with every other article 
in the Upholstery way.” 

And still another may be quoted from the New 
York Gazette of March 31, 1769, as follows: 


SyeO: HN: TALS eG as 
“ Upholsterer and House-Broker, from London; 


“BEGS leave to inform the gentlemen and ladies, and the 
public in general of the city of New-York, &c. that he has taken 
a large commodious house, situate on Cowfoot-hill, in the city 
of New-York, aforesaid; where he intends carrying on the above 
branches in the most neat, elegant and newest taste possible. 
As the asserting the different prices of workmanship, 1s a thing 
frequently made use of to prejudice the too credulous part of 
mankind in favour of the advertiser, and is a means of their 
being exposed to impositions, which they at one time or other 
dearly experience, when too late to remedy; He therefore takes 
this method of informing them, that whoever shall be pleased to 
honour him with their favours, may depend on being served with 
any of the under described articles, with the greatest punctuality, 
and finished according to the above inserted manner, at the most 
reasonable rates, viz. Four post, bureau, table, tent, field and 
turnup bedsteads, with silk and worsted damask, morine, hara- 





FIG. §4. HIGHBOY SHOWING CHIPPENDALE 
INFLUENCE MADE IN PHILADELPHIA 


Pn 


126 THE AM ECR TC AN Wel nie 


teen, China, printed cotton or check furnitures; festoon, Vene- 
tian, and drapery window curtains, easy chairs, sophas, tent and 
camp equipages; floor and bed side carpets, feather beds, blank- 
ets, quilts and counterpains, sconce, chimney, pier and dressing 
glasses in mahogany, carved and gilt frames; card, dining, tea, 
dressing, and night tables; mahogany and other chairs, fire- 
irons, brass fenders, shovels, pokers and tongs, copper tea- 
kettles, sauce-pans, and all manner of chamber, parlour and 
kitchen furniture too tedious to be mentioned. He likewise 
proposes where conveniency may suit the party, to take in ex- 
change for work executed, any manner of old household furni- 
ture, as he intends furnishing houses with the above articles 
second hand as well as new. 

“NB. Plantations, estates, negroes, all manner of merchandize 
and houshold furniture bought and sold at public vendue. 

“FUNERALS decently performed.” 


The list of materials im the advertisements of Tay- 
lor and others is bewildering. All sorts of damasks 
and China silks, needlework, and woolen and linen 
materials were employed. There is frequent reference 
to furniture checks, no doubt a silk or linen woven 
material in gay colored checkered pattern. Brocatelle 
was another popular fabric. Damasks were used not 
only for furniture upholstery and window curtains 
but rooms were hung in this rich material after the 
European fashion. Many suggestions for the hanging 
of curtains are to be found in some of Hogarth’s 
prints and in the engravings made by Daniel Nico- 
lano Chodowiecki in the last half of the eighteenth 
century. A set of curtains in the original material 
and draping may be seen in the old Moffatt house in 
Portsmouth, the property of the Colonial Dames of 
the State of New Hampshire. 

The variety of materials used for bed hangings and 
curtains is well illustrated in the furnishings of the 
bedrooms owned by Peter Faneuil, who gave to the 


Sei CLOEN ID PFalLiO.0.R 127 


town of Boston (1740-1742) the market-place and 
meeting-hall—‘‘the cradle of Liberty.’ His own 
room had bed and window curtains of green harra- 
teen.! Yellow mohair was used for the counterpane, 
curtains, chair coverings, and window seats of an- 
other room. 





FIG. 56. TIP-TOP TEA-TABLE SHOWING 

CHIPPENDALE INFLUENCE. MADE IN 

PHILADELPHIA, THIRD QUARTER OF 
THE EIGHT EEN DH CENTURY. 


“Worked fustian curtains lined with green damask, 
a mahogany field bed with chintz curtains, and china 
window curtains . . .” were also mentioned in this 
interesting inventory, as well as a large Turkey car- 
pet and painted canvases for the floors. 

Damask came into increasing use for curtains and 
furniture, a fashion which ran well through the cen- 
tury. Many bed hangings were very lavish. The will 
of Mary Alexander of New York (dated 1756) leaves 

1A kird of linen fabric 


128 THE (AMIE RTO AN AW TENG 


“to my daughter Elizabeth, wife of John Stevens of 
New Jersey, Merchant, £100 to purchase furniture 
for a bed”? and among other legacies, “to my daugh- 
ter, Catharine Parker, one dozen and four crimson 
Damask chairs and the Crimson damask window cur- 
tains . . . in the Blue and Gold Leathesrocom=: 

Genoa velvets were not uncommon, and among the 
various prizes for a very pretentious “Land, Plate 
and Goods” lottery freely advertised throughout the 
Colonies in 1765 were “some pieces of rich Italian 
and French silks.’? Green, blue, red, and yellow 
rooms in which the furniture coverings matched the 
hangings became a prevailing fashion. The adver- 
tisement of the teaching of needlework in all its 
varieties leads to the belief that the needlepoint 
found on so much of the English furniture must also 
have graced some of our Colonial walnut and mahog- 
any, examples of which can be seen on chairs in the 
rooms on this floor. 

Among the minor textiles, calimancoes ! of various 
colors appear in the inventories as being used for chair 
coverings. “Red, blue, and purple Copper plate fur- 
niture calicoes and chintz furniture” were advertised 
by Richard Bancker in the New York Gazette of 
April 18, 1765. The same paper on February 18, 
1768, noted the importation by Erasmus Williams of 
“a great variety of purple and fancy calicoes and 
cottons, chintzes, and plated furniture cotton of all 
prices, and Saxon blue, green, yellow, scarlet, and 
crimson furniture checks.” 

The following advertisement in the New York 


1 A woolen stuf of Flanders, glossy on the surface, woven with a satin 
twill, and checkered in the warp, so that the checks are seen on one side 


only. 


SBC TON 1 SF SINO OLR 129 


Gazette of April 25, 1774, tells of the riot of color 
which must have been 


shown in many a Colonial 
living-room: 


“Woodward and Kip . 

will dispose of at their store 
near the Fly Market superflu- 
ous broadcloths with ratinets 
tomatch, Double purple ground 
callicoes 18 yards, Fine ditto 12 
yards, Fine laylock and fancy 
callicoes, Red, blue and purple 
fine copperplate ditto. Lay- 
lock, lutestring, light figured, 
fancy, shell, pompadour and 
french ground fine chintzes. 
Red, blue and purple copper- 
plate linens. Purple blue and 
red copperplate furniture calli- 
coes. Blue red and purple fur- 
niture bindings. Black, blue, 
brown, Saxon green, pea green, 
yellow, crimson, garnet, pink 
and purple moreens.”’ 





Haircloth, ‘‘flowered 
horsehair,” “fancy hair- 
cloth” came into use in 
the middle of the century. 
Its fine quality is en- 
dorsed in a letter (1765) 
of Mrs. Benjamin Frank- 
lin’s to her husband, then 
in London: “The chairs 
are plain horsehair and look as well as Paduasoy.”’ 

“Furniture checks’? were introduced to the New 
York market in 1760, and “Scarlet, crimson, green, 





FIG) 427... (CLOCK, » WALNUT 
MADE IN PHILADELPHIA 


LO TH EW A\MoB. Boe AN We NG 


yellow, and blue and white furniture checks”’ became 
very fashionable in 1767 for curtains and chair-seats. 
The dining-room of Robert Carson (1784) held “6 
mahogany chairs with green check bottoms,”’ and the 
“back-room” ‘‘6 mahogany chairs with red check 
bottoms.” 

Wall-papers, too, were frequently seen. Some were 
Chinese hand-painted papers imported into America, 
such as are shown on this floor in the room from Phil- 
adelphia; others were printed papers with rococo en- 
framement, like those made by Jackson of Battersea 
and still to be seen on the walls of the Jeremiah Lee 
house at Marblehead; others still were papers with 
flock designs, and these too can be found in the 
original positions. The flock paper (1750) attempted 
to reproduce a textile, resembling a brocaded velvet. 
Flock is the term for a finely ground-up felt which was 
blown on the wet adhesive in which the design was 
printed. “Stampt papers for lining of Rooms’’ were 
advertised (1753) by many a bookseller. 

Sir William Pepperell (see page 190) writes to Lon- 
don (1737), “You have here enclosed, a draught of a 
chamber, I desire you to geet mock tapestory, or 
pant? canvis lay‘ in oyle for hangings for ye same, 
and send me.” Baron Stiegel, the maker of the early 
American glass, which is shown on exhibition in the 
first floor passage, hung his large parlor at Mann- 
heim, Pennsylvania, with tapestries of hunting 
scenes. 

Advertisements of upholsterers had long offered to 
hang rooms with paper or stuffs, not the least inter- 
esting of these being one which appeared in the Penn- 
sylvania Chronicle of December 3, 1767. It was 
about this time that Venetian blinds were being 1n- 





FIG. 58. SECRETARY WITH BOMBE BASE 
SHOWING THE USE OF ROCOCO FORMS 
AND DETAILS 


132 THE y AUMCEe RICO ANG) Sacha 


troduced into America. Window shades did not come 
into general use until well on into the next century. 


“JOHN WEBSTER, Upholsterer, from London, Who Is 
Removed from Arch-street, to the corner shop, facing the 
London Coffee-House, in Front-street, . . . begs leave to 
acquaint allladiesand gentlemen . . . that they may depend 
on having their work executed in the best and newest taste, 
such as... roomshung with paper, chintz, damask, or tapes- 
try, &c. also the best and newest invented Venetian sun-blinds 
for windows, on the best principles, stain’d to any colour, moves 
to any position so as to give different lights, screens from the 
scorching rays of the sun, draws a cool air in hot weather, draws 
up as a curtain, and prevents being over-loaded, and is the 
greatest preserver of furniture of any thing of the kind ever 


” 


invented. 


Painted hangings continued to come from abroad 
until the outbreak of the war, “‘a large set of the most 
superb hangings ever imported into this city, ele- 
gantly painted and gilt on canvas”’ being advertised 
in New York in 1774. 

Thus with woven fabrics, damask, and tapestry, 
with decorated canvas and painted or printed papers, 
in addition to decorations painted directly on the 
wooden paneling, there was a wide variety of orna- 
mentation suitable for the handsomest room. 

Painted canvases came into vogue for floor cover- 
ing early in the eighteenth century. “A large painted 
canvas square as the room” and “two old checquered 
canvases to lay under a table” are mentioned in the 
inventory (1729) of Governor William Burnet of 
New York. ‘Bedside carpets” were advertised in 
1747, “‘Flower’d Carpets” in 1750, “eight-foot and 
nine-foot four white and spotted rugs, green Rugs” in 
1751, “hair cloth for carpets,’ 1752) mice aye oaes 
carpets in 1759—along with “‘carpetting Persia, 








FIG. $9. BLOCK-FRONT SECRETARY WITH 
SHELLS, MADE BY JOHN GODDARD OF 
NEWPORT 


134 THE AMERICAN WING 


Scotch, list entry, floor, bedside, table and painted 
ditto” in the following year. The Museum for obvi- 
ous reasons has made no attempt to carpet the floors 
of the American Wing. A mental picture of one of 
these early carpets can be obtained from a quotation 
in a letter written in London in 1758 by Benjamin 
Franklin to his wife. ‘‘In the great case, besides the 
little box is contained some carpeting for the best 
room floor. There is enough for one large, or two 
small ones; it is to be sewed together, the edges first 
felled down, and care taken to make the figures meet 
exactly; there is bordering for the same.” 

The general use of carpets became well nigh unt- 
versal. Mrs. Franklin in writing to her husband in 
London in 1765 gave a description of those in her 
modest home. “In this room (the south) is a carpet I 
bought cheap for its goodness, and entirely new. The 
large carpet is in the blue room. In the parlour is a 
Scotch carpet, which has had much fault found with 
it. . . . If you could meet with a Turkey carpet 
I should like it. . . . In the small room where we 
sit we have a small Scotch Carpet. ... .” 

The Oriental rugs popular in Europe during the 
eighteenth century found their way to the American 
Colonies and gave comfort and color to the finer 
rooms so handsomely furnished, hung, and uphol- 
stered. 

In the metalwork of this period we find a close 
stylistic relation to the furniture and architectural 
decoration. Iron, brass, pewter, and silver were all 
used in considerable quantity. 

Of iron were made all sorts of fireplace tools and 
equipment, candlestands and other lighting fixtures, 
firebacks, grates, door knockers, and door hardware 


LIYIdS OOODOU TTNA AHL NI SI TQ ‘Old ‘NOISAC AHL NI 
ONILVNINOGAUd SAAAND OOOOOU SMOHS “AACTIO GNV GIAUVO LANTVM AITOS JO 
19 ‘Old ‘dOL AHL LY GAONGOULNI SAAUND VWAO SVH “GauaaANAA LANTVM dO “OQ “Old 


SASSVTO-ONINOOT AUNLNAO-HLNIALHOIS “TQ—O9 “SOIL 





136 TH EO A M_ER D:CAUWN av Ihe 


of many sorts. From the beginning of the second 
quarter of the century—in fact, in 1720—grates had 
been freely advertised and Newcastle coal was im- 
ported at an early date. Many advertisements list- 
ing all sorts of iron and brass fireplace equipment 
might be quoted from dates ranging between 1720 
and the beginning of the Revolution. In 1737, 
“William Coffin at the Ostrich near the drawbridge 
makes and sells . . . Knockers for doors, Brass 
Doggs of all sorts, candlesticks, Shovels and tongs, 
also all sorts of Brazier’s and Pewterer’s ware.” In 
1744 in New York is mentioned a Pennsylvania fire- 
place, that popular so-called Franklin stove which 
was very generally used throughout the century. An 
unusual advertisement of 1749 includes “a beautiful 
brass hearth with tongs, shovel etc.” Fenders are 
freely advertised in 1767 and after, and occasionally 
mentioned before that date. In 1767 a brass founder, 
Wilkins by name, advertises ““openwork and plain 
fenders.” In 1772 he has a large stock in his shop, 
At the Sign of the Brass Andiron and Candlestick. 
Among other items are two hundred and fifty brass 
and iron andirons of all sorts, and brass fenders, 
openwork and plain. 

In Philadelphia the brass scrolled grates advertised 
in 1768 show the relationship in style and in archi- 
tectural detail to the scrolled pediments so much in 
vogue at the time on clocks and highboys. 

Candlestands of wrought iron, brass mounted, 
were of simple design but finely wrought. They 
usually resembled a tripod, their legs, reversed curves, 
assuming the form of the tea-table bases. 

There was also a good deal of finely wrought brass 
imported, particularly in the form of chandeliers and 


SECOND FLOOR 137 


sconces. The methods of lighting were much im- 
proved; by the middle of the century are found 
“Sconces with gilt frames” (1747), “glass lamps” 
(1752), “Lamp oil being for burning in lamps and no 
other use” (1752), ‘Rape oil in juggs for Lamps” 
(1752), “Globe Lamps” (1753), ‘““Glass sconces”’ 
(1753), all of which mark the introduction into gen- 
eral use of a more developed form of lighting fixture. 

“Lamps of square glass, barrel lanthorns, cham- 
ber lamps, and very neat enamel lamps with stand as 
for lanthorns” (1775) were fashionable at the close 
of the period. 

The discovery that the bayberry, a native product 
and peculiar to America, could be used for the mak- 
ing of candles had helped settle the problem of easy 
lighting early in the century. Bayberry wax became 
a recognized article of commerce and was so eagerly 
picked that Connecticut legislated in 1724 to prevent 
the stripping of bushes before September Io. An in- 
teresting note on bayberry candles is found in a letter 
from Governor Jonathan Belcher to his son, a student 
at Cambridge, under date of Boston, May 20, 1734. 
“T now send by Captain Homans a box cont* 60 bs 
of green wax candles, well made; and have put 
aboard Crocker the same quantity to be delivered to 
your uncle, from whom you will take them, and 
present in your own name (as the produce of your 
native country) one box to the Lord Chancellor, the 
other to the Lord Chief Justice, or other wayes as you 
shall judge may be most to your service. You must 
let em know that the greatest curiosity of them is the 
aromatic smell, and may be handled without any 
offence. They are made from a berry of a shrub 
which we call bayes.” The allusion to their being 


138 T HEY AM Eek IC AN Sele 


b 


“handled without offence” is explained by G. Duy- 
ckinck, New York’s portrait painter and dealer in 
painting materials (1750) in his announcement “that 
he has a mill just completed for grinding and sifting 
of colors either in powder or in oyl, especially verdi- 
grease, it being pernicious to the Health which is be- 
ing used by some in making candles to color them 
green.” 

Wax, tallow, and bayberry supplied the material 
for candles until the introduction by James Clemens 
to his Boston patrons in 1749 of “spermaceti can- 
dles, exceeding all others for Beauty, Sweetness of 
Scent when extinguished; Duration being more than 
double with Tallow-candles of equal size; Dimensions 
of Flame nearly four times more, emitting a soft, 
easy, expanding light, bringing the Object close to the 
Sight, rather than causing the eye to race after them, 
as all Tallow-Candles do from constant Dimness 
which they produce. One of these candles serves the 
Use and Purpose of three Tallow Ones and upon the 
whole are much pleasanter and cheaper.”’ 

“Green wax candles” (1760) and “‘white and yel- 
low wax torches” (1772) in lustres, sconces, and can- 
dlesticks gave a diffused and brilliant light. 

Pewter, which continued in general household use, 
was still largely of English importation, though its 
production here was on a steady increase. Its forms 
closely followed the changing fashions in plate. 
Among the New York pewterers are found the names 
of William Diggs (1702), William Horswell (1715), 
Joseph Liddell (1716-1754), William Bradford (1719- 
1772), John Bassett (1725), and Peter Harby (1746). 
The advertisements of the imported articles became 
more specific. The Pennsylvania Gazette of March 





FIG. 63. CHOCOLATE POT BY EDWARD WINSLOW 
(1669-1753). DECORATED WITH 
GADROONING AND FRETWORK 


I40 THEE AMIE RAY GAAGN Wels 


22, 1733, announced “‘to all lovers of decency neat- 
ness and Tea Table decorum. Just arrived from Lon- 
don, all sizes of the best white metal Pewter Tea 
Pots, likewise Tea Stands, Cream Sauce Pans, Tea- 
Spoons, and other Curiosities, all of which are of the 
newest fashion and so very neat as not easily to be 
distinguished from Silver, either by the workmanship 
or color and will be sold very cheap by retail, at Mr. 
Stones next door to Mr. Samuel Pars in Front Street, 
Philadelphia by the Importer.” 

In addition to ‘common pewter,” composed of tin 
and copper in proportions of about four and a half to 
one, there were, toward the middle of the century, 
frequent advertisements of “hard metal pewter, an 
alloy of tin, antimony, and copper, more durable in 
quality and whiter in color, but lacking the alluring 
texture of the older ware. 

These importations consisted of “water and soup- 
plates, breakfast and other pewter basons, barber 
pots and basons, ink-stands, quart, three quarter 
and pint teapots, quart and pint mugs and tankards, 
setts of measures from a pint to a gallon, dishes, 
quart-pots, soup kettles, communion flagons and 
cups, teapots with or without legs.” Similar in form 
to the latter are those little teapots of salt-glazed 
stoneware shown in the main gallery. 

The silver 1 of the period is of a quality commensu- 
rate with the accomplishment in the other crafts, and 
it carries on with equal positiveness the rococo spirit 
of design, often repeating the identical motifs of the 
furniture decoration. The reverse curve, combined in 
many ways, is the basis of form, while decoration, 


1 For a full treatment of the subject see American Silver of the Seven- 
teenth and Eighteenth Centuries by C. Louise Avery. 


Se C1O,N DAF 4L.0.0,R 14! 


whether engraved, repoussé, or cast, employs the 
many motifs which are seen in the furniture—shells, 
leaves, flowers, gadrooning, fretwork of adapted 
Chinese and Gothic forms—all used with studied 
care and feeling for placement. 





FIG. 64. CREAMER 
WITH SIMULATED 
CABRIOLE LEGS 





FIG. 65. PEAR-SHAPED TEAPOTS, BY JOSEPH PINTO 
(c. 1765) AND JOHN CONy (1655-1722) 


There are noted many changes of form. The 
straight-sided, truncated cone which we have seen in 
tankards, flagons, mugs, and pots of various kinds 
gives place to a bulbous body, whose profile is a cyma 
curve (figs. 64, 65). The lids of many of the flagons 
and tankards are domed. Teapots, now larger in size, 
repeat the use of this double curve in pear shape, 
sometimes upright, sometimes inverted (fig. 65). 


142 TeH EE’ CAMCE ROL CAIN Ween 


Very beautiful mouldings are used and these are 
chiefly based upon classic architectural prototypes— 
torus, cavetto, ovolo, and cyma—used in different 
arrangements (figs. 63, 65, 67). 

Milk-pots, salt-cellars, and braziers are set on 
little feet which follow the cabriole form which we 
have seen in the furniture (fig. 64). Pierced work and 
work cut out to a silhouette design recall the scrolled 
looking-glasses of the period. 

Unlike the pottery and the textiles, a great deal of 
the finest silverwork of the period was done by 
American silversmiths, although of course a certain 
amount of plate was imported. 

As in the earlier period, the silversmiths occupied a 
position of distinction and many of them gained fame 
for their patriotic activities. The most famous name 
today is that of Paul Revere, Jr., who is more gener- 
ally known for his display of patriotism than for his 
accomplishments as silversmith, but whose crafts- 
manship can be studied in the gallery on this floor. 

The silver made in New York possesses an unusual 
richness of decoration, and here, too, such well-known 
names as Van Dyck, Brevoort, Goelet, and Bancker 
are stamped on mariy a handsome piece. The silver 
utensils included articles for the tea service, for 
church use, and for table appointment. 

Sheffield plate came into household use almost 1m- 
mediately after this less expensive substitute for 
silver made its appearance in England. “Plated tea 
urns”’ (1762), ‘Silver plated candlesticks with fluted 
pillars” (1767), ‘urns or Tea-Kitchens, silver plated 
and chased” (1770), ‘“‘one handsome double bellied 
plated Tea-Kitchen and stand” (1768) were adver- 
tised here and added to the splendors of the Colonial 


SeEPCLOON-D SF LI0/0' R 143 


tea-table. The arrival of “‘candlesticks with fluted 
pillars” (1767), Adam in design, evidences how 
quickly new styles in England came to this side of 
the water. The date of the first manufacture of Shef- 
field plate in the Colonies is uncertain. 

The well-worn silver-plated teaboard of elongated 
quatrefoil form on exhibition, engraved with Wash- 





FIG. 66. SALVER WITH ROCOCO 
BORDER, BY THOMAS HAMERSLY 


ington’s coat of arms and valued at five shillings in 
his inventory, was probably among those mentioned 
in a contemporary account of the decoration of his 
Philadelphia dinner table, contained in Watson’s 
Annals of Philadelphia (1830): 


“Mrs. Washington often, but not always, dined with the com- 
pany; and if there were ladies present they sat on each side of her. 
Mr. Lear, his private secretary, sat at the foot of the table, and 
was expected to be specially attentive to all the guests. The 
President himself, sat half way from the head to the foot of the 
table, and on that side which would place Mrs. Washington, 
though distant from him, on his right hand. . . . There were 
placed upon his table, as ornaments, sundry alabaster mytho- 


144 THE AMERICAN WING 


logical figures of about two feet high. The centre of the table 
contained five or six large silver or plated waiters. The table it- 
self was of an oval shape; at the end were also some silver 
waiters of an oval form.” 


Much table glassware was imported and a good 
deal was also made in this country. The factory of 
Caspar Wistar, begun in 1739 and running for some 
twenty years, turned out much window glass and 
quantities of bottles. In southern New Jersey a good 
deal of interesting glassware was produced of a type 
resembling English and German contemporary work 
(fig. 69). It is comparatively heavy, of beautiful 
shades of green, aquamarine, blue, red, and amber. 
Its decoration consists of superimposed glass designs 
in a wave pattern, in threads of colored glass, and in 
modeling of the molten metal. 

Henry William Stiegel’ manufactured quanti- 
ties of window glass and bottles—usually the staple 
products of the glass factories—and in addition a 
great many utensils for table and general household 
use, including bowls, flasks, salt-cellars, and many 
other forms. The Stiegel fabric is of high quality, the 
colors clear and even, and they include a rich blue, 
amethyst, green, amber, opaque white, and clear 
white. His decorative methods were modeling of the 
surface, engraving, enameling, and combinations of 
these with colored glass (figs. 70, 71). * 

In addition to such Colonial manufacture, quanti- 
ties of glassware were imported. In 1746 in Boston 
we find advertised as imported recently from London 
““Wormed Wine-Glasses,” and in 1750 such articles 

1 See Stiegel Glass, by Frederick W. Hunter. 

2 A large number of the Stiege! types of glass utensils may be studied 


in the Hunter Collection of Stiegel glass, shown, in part, in the first floor 
hallway and the Clearwater room. 


aC O2N,D 9 F 1 070:R 145 


as ‘‘double flint wine glasses, cruets, salts, milk pots, 
candlesticks, salvers, three footed salts, Dutch milk 
jugs and bird baths.” In 1751 double and single flint 
glasses, mugs and decanters, plain and flowered beer 
and wine glasses appear in New York. 

Frequent mention is made throughout the third 
quarter of the century of candlesticks and candle- 
shades, and in one case of ornamental globes with cu- 
rious images on them—either engraved or enameled. 





FIG. 67. PUNCH BOWL 
BY PAUL REVERE, JR. (c. 1768) 


Much of the glass is related in its design and deco- 
ration to the prevailing taste, as seen in the other art 
crafts—the cyma curve and baluster or bulbous form 
appearing in all sorts of utensils. In decoration there 
was a use of flowers and leaves, of attempts at 
gadrooning and scalloping. Many of the pieces for 
table use imitated the silver in their shapes, the little 
three-legged milk-pots of Stiegel make following ex- 
actly the silver forms. 

The pottery made in America would seem to have 
lagged behind the work of the cabinet-maker, silver- 
smith, brazier, and glass-blower. Most of the pottery 
was locally made, and was of the simple crude sort 


146. Ll -TAUE! AM ER CANS BVverNge 


for kitchen use. It includes stonewares and glazed 
earthenwares, sometimes with slip decoration. A few 
attempts at the manufacture of soft-paste porcelain 
were made in the eighteenth century but were not 
successful financially, and scarcely any authenticated 
examples of these have come down to us. 

The greatest proportion of better wares for table 
use was imported and a very large number of adver- 
tisements dating all through this period might be 
quoted. 

The English pottery used in this country, made ata 
time when the potters were employing motifs of 
ornament obtained from nature—leaves, roots, 
branches, tendrils, shells, etc.—was stylistically re- 
lated to the furniture in its ornamentation. The ad- 
vertisements in the Boston newspapers, 1732, of “‘all 
sorts of White, Brown and Blew Stone, and fine 
Earthenware” “‘and all sorts of Dutch Stone and 
Delft ware”? note the introduction to our people of 
the beautiful white salt-glazed ware on exhibition. 
On it may be seen the same delicate work in relief of 
rococo form so characteristic of the ornamentation on 
mantelpieces, furniture, and ceilings. The advertise- 
ment of the “‘Hogsheads of earthenware, white stone 
Tea-cups and saucers Bowls, Plates Salts, milkpots”’ 
(1745) testify to the abundance of this now highly 
sought after salt-glazed ware of England. : 

In the second half of the century we find salt- 
glazed wares, both white and enameled, still coming 
in, as well as the introduction into New York of the 
Whieldon wares, ‘“‘English brown china Tea-Pots of 
all sorts with a rais’d Flower” (1751), “flint ware as 
tea cups &c. japan’d gilded and flower’d teapots” 
(1752), ‘Earthenware of the best Sort from Bristol at 


Seb CON Doe E) LO: OR 147 


sixteen shillings per crate in Parcels” (1752), “Crates 
of Brown and Yellow cups, Dishes and Plates” 
(1752). Apparently stoneware usually came in crates 
and earthenware in hogsheads. An advertisement of 
Flores Bancker (New York, 1771), includes “‘ Copper 
fated Qucen s) VVare,’~ “Plain Queen’s Ware,” 
“White Stone Ware,” ? “Collyflower Ware,’ “Tor- 
tois Shell and Agate Ware” and “Delph Ware,” and 





FIG. 68. GROUP OF THREE CANDLESTICKS SHOWING 
ROCOCO INFLUENCE 


enumerates almost every vessel for table service man- 
ufactured or used today. This may enable us to pic- 
ture many a dining-room of the period and as well 
stimulate the desire for further quest among those in-_ 
terested in eighteenth-century English ceramics. 
While most of the “Table Setts”’ so frequently ad- 
vertised were from the Orient, we have every evidence 
that the fine English porcelain tea and dinner sets 
made at Worcester, Derby, Bow, etc., came over in 
large quantities. The Museum is most fortunate in 
possessing a fine collection of English porcelains, the 


1 Wedgwood ware printed by the transfer process. 
® Salt-glazed ware was advertised as white flint ware as early as 1733. 


148 THE A°M E)RC AUN Wile 


bequest of John L. Cadwalader, now on exhibition in 
Gallery D6. A visit to it would help one to appreci- 
ate the color note these beautiful English porcelains 
must have given to many an American living-room, 
as well as illustrate much of the china advertised in 
our New York and Philadelphia newspapers in the 
decade just prior to the Revolution. 

“Burnt china”! appeared among the offerings of 
our pottery importers from 1765 on, as well as “a 
great variety of Images for mantle pieces and chests 
of drawers” (1765), ““Complete sets of image china” 
(1767), ‘Burnt image china” (1770), “The greatest 
variety of ornamental china, sets of figures, pairs and 
jars” (1770), ‘“a great variety of the neatest ornamen- 
tal china ever imported consisting of small cups, 
figures, pairs, setts, groups, beeckers and jars” (1771). 
Such documentary evidence and the existence of a 
few heirlooms descending from Colonial days war- 
rant the Museum in using examples of these superb 
English porcelains on tables, chests, mantelpieces, 
and wall brackets in the “Marmion” and Philadel- 
phia rooms and the exhibition gallery. 

Of the various pieces of white stoneware (salt 
glaze) that are displayed in the American Wing, the 
“Porto Bello” ware necessarily must have the great- 
est interest to Americans by reason of the relation of 
the story it tells to the naming of Mount Vernon, the 
Mecca of American historical pilgrimage. Its design 
memorializes the capture of Porto Bello, the great 
Spanish stronghold on the Isthmus of Panama. No 
victory of the English arms from the defeat of the 
Spanish Armada to the achievements of Nelson 


1A term which had been long used in American inventories to dif- 
ferentiate porcelain from earthenware. 





FIG. 69. GLASSWARE MADE IN SOUTHERN NEW JERSEY 
MIDDLE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 


150 THE AMERICAN Wo 


awakened in England the enthusiasm caused by this 
event. Two hundred different medals were struck in 
the honoring of its hero. 

For twenty years English naval prestige had been 
on the wane, the Spaniards overran the American 
seas, discontent was rife in Parliament. In 1737 Cap- 
tain Edward Vernon, one of the opposition, declared 
that with six ships of line he would take Porto Bello, 
previously impregnable against all attacks. Two 
years later war was declared. Vernon was made 
Admiral of the Blue and given a squadron of nine 
ships, only six of which he used in the reduction of 
this two-century-old stronghold. America shared 
with England the joy over the freeing of their com- 
merce. Two years later Admiral Vernon sailed for 
Cartagena in command of a fleet carrying fifteen 
thousand seamen and twelve thousand troops—an ex- 
pedition which ended in disaster, but without weak- 
ening the popular esteem in which its leader was held. 
America contributed its quota to the land forces. The 
Virginia troops were officered by Lawrence Washing- 
ton, who on his return to his lofty home on the banks 
of the Potomac, named it Mount Vernon. Twelve 
years later Lawrence Washington died, leaving his: 
estate to his younger brother. 

The idea of the making of this Porto Bello ware is 
ascribed to Astbury; we find it advertised here for 
sale as late as 1765. The shapely and quaintly mod- 
eled embossments on the bowl are triumphs of the 
potter’s art. They depict the semicircular harbor de- 
fended by the lofty castles, Gloria and St. Jeronimo, 
a land battery on a promontory in the harbor beyond 
which the Spanish gunboats are in hiding. The six 


ships under full sail are in evidence, also the doughty 


Sei oe Oe Ne Dak I OcO oR ISI 


hero in the foreground of the conventionalized plan 
of the harbor. The other side of the bowl contains in 
shapely cut letters, also in relief, the talismanic 
legend: THE BRITISH GLORY REVIV’D BY ADMIRAL 
VERNON. HE TOOK PORTO BELLO WITH SIX SHIPS ONLY 
Bray 00229551730. 

Additional items found in advertisements of the 


period may be briefly listed. In 1765 appeared ‘‘very 





ah 


FIG. 70. ENGRAVED FLIP GLASS AND COVERED MUG FROM 
THE FACTORY OF HENRY WILLIAM STIEGEL 


fine Nankin tea sets with gold edges” and “flower 
horns,” in 1770 “the greatest variety of ornamental 
china, sets of figures and jars,” in 1772 ‘“‘cream and 
black colored pottery gilt of several flowers,” “ milk- 
pots, sugar dishes, . . . coffee and caudle cups and 
saucers cream colored gilt, tea pots of several different 
flowers, . . . slop bowls black silvered,’” these 
probably the Jackfield ware. 

There was some decoration of pottery and porcelain 
done in the country, as is witnessed by the advertise- 
ment of James Bruff in 1768, at whose shop “china 


152 THE AMERICAN SW 


is rivitted and ornamented with stretches of masonry 
or with Birds, Fish, Boats, Flowers or what else the 
Employers pleases to have.” 

In the main gallery and the rooms on this floor we 
have brought together representative examples of 
the imported wares which formed so important and 
perishable an element in the ensemble of rooms of 
this period. 

Evidence of a rather general use in this country of 
those interesting English printed tiles, first printed by 
Sadler and Green, is found in a letter to Henry Pel- 
ham in which Adam Babcock of Newport wrote 
(1774): “I designed to have given you money eno’ 
to have bot me 76 coper plate Tiles for my Chambers 
and ¢ ps. of neat paper, blue Ground with a proper 
Proportion of Bordering for one Chamber. I beg you 
would buy me these things. . . « I should choose 
the Tyles all of different Figures—and not the one 
side of the Fire Place like the other, if there is 
variety eno’.”’ 

We are able to infer that, just as in textiles, pottery, 
and porcelain, the fashions of the Old World in the 
decorative use of engravings were eagerly followed in 
the New World from the following advertisements 
Gizperes Surryeeceie [kevin Smibert, the portrait painter 
who was brought over to Newport in 1729 by Bishop 
Berkeley to be a professor of the fine arts at a college 
which he proposed to found in Bermuda: 


“John Smibert, Painter Sells all Sorts of Colours, dry or ground, 
with oils and Brushes, Fanns of several Sorts, the best metzo- 
tinto, Italian, French, Dutch and English Prints, in Frames and 
Glasses, or without, by wholesale or Retail, at Reasonable Rates; 
at his Home on Queen Street between the Town-House and the 
Orange Tree, Boston.” 


ErCO ND F 1.0 OR 153 


“To be sold at Mr. Smiberts in Queen Street on Monday the 
26th instant. | 

“A Collection of valuable Prints, engraved by the best Hands, 
after the finest Pictures in Italy, France, Holland and England. 
Some by Raphael, Michael Angelo, Poussin, Rubens and others 
the greatest masters, containing a great variety of Subjects, as 
History &c. Most of the Prints very rare, and not to be met with 
except in private collections; being what Mr. Smibert collected 
in the above mentioned countries, for his own private use and 
improvement.” 





FIG. 7I. PEAR-SHAPED SALT-CELLAR AND PITCHER FROM 
THE FACTORY OF HENRY WILLIAM STIEGEL 


Peter Faneuil, of Boston, left behind him (1743) 
over two hundred and fifty pictures, most of which 
were engravings, and on the walls of the “‘best room” 
‘of the ‘““House of Seven Gables” in the same year 
hung “‘nineteen mezzotints covered with glass.” 

The New York inventories show almost as general 
a use of prints. That interesting Swedish observer, 
Peter Kalm (1748), noted in his description of New 
York interiors, ““The walls were quite covered with 
all sorts of drawings and pictures in small frames.” 

In 1749 we find “Pictures on Glass with gilt 
Frames” and “Pictures Burnt on Glass” first freely 


44 TH E. A MOE RIC ALN? EW eae 


advertised in New York. Their popularity was in- 
stantaneous and their vogue lasted well into the next 
century. They were largely done in mezzotint, their 
faces firmly fixed upon glass by some transparent ad- 
hesive such as Canada balsam, their paper backing 
having been previously thinned to an extent that in 
some cases left barely enough to show the engraving. 
They were painted through their backs with rich 
reds, blues, and greens. A small group of the mid- 
eighteenth century showing this characteristic use 
of prints is hanging in the corridor. The same year 
gave us an advertisement in the New York Gazette 
of April 24, 1749, more specific in character than 
those hitherto quoted: 


“To be sold cheap by the Printer hereof, A Map of the whole 
world; a Map of each Quarter of the World;—a map of Eng- 
land; a Plan of the City of London; a View of the City of New 
York, a view of the Battle of Culloden, a view of Captain Phillips 
retaking the Solebay; two large Prints of Horses, one the Duke 
of Boltons, the other the Earl of Portmore; a beautiful small 
Print of Sir Philip Sidney, and several other small Prints.” 


That all-absorbing curtain-raiser to the American 
Revolution, the Stamp Act, and its speedy repeal 
were quickly followed by the offering of “large pic- 
tures of Pitt and the Marquis of Rockingham,” the 
head of the ministry which caused the abolition of 
the obnoxious duties, and also the importation from 
London of “‘A curious assortment of new pictures of 
Pitt, Conway, Barré, etc.,” “Several new Prints 
relative to the Repeal of the stamp act,” and “two 
beautiful Prints from Copper of the Repeal of the 
Stamp-act and the State of America.” 

‘““A small assortment of Hogarth’s very humorous 
Pictures with a few very neat landscapes’’ and some 


mre OND FLOOR 15s 


fine sets of horses on copperplates appeared as soon 
as the political storm clouds disappeared. 

The more important mezzotints of the third quar- 
ter of the eighteenth century had their vogue here as 
well as in England. In 1772 John J. Roosevelt an- 


nounces in the New York Gazette of June 11: 





FIG. 72. ENGRAVING OF HARVARD COLLEGE 
BY BURGIS, 1726 


“The most elegant and extensive variety of pictures ever 
imported into this place, one print in particular (with a very 
handsome frame and glass) of Regulus opposing the intreaties of 
the Roman Senate, importuning him not to return to Carthage, 
price £14. 

“N.B. This piece, the death of General Wolf and several others, 
are copied from the original paintings of the celebrated Mr. West 
of Philadelphia.” 


From this outline of the period it will be seen that — 
an active social life firmly based upon accumulated 
and increasing wealth was demanding and receiving 


156 THE AMERICAN WING 


a full supply of all the accessories for cultured living 
which were customary in England. In addition to 
these importations a large group of craftsmen were 
producing in this country fine work in cabinetry, 
silver, pewter, brass, iron, and glass. It 1s, therefore, 
difficult to estimate just what proportion of them 
were imported or locally made. Of furniture and 
silver certainly much more was made here than 
brought over. The changing fashions and the striving 
for novelty were as much noted here as abroad, al- 
though, as has been said elsewhere, there was no 
really palatial living such as was customary among 
the royalty or great nobility of England. It is the 
merchant whose wealth is rapidly increasing who 
buys extensively of such articles as we are interested 
in, and it is with the large group of these in England 
that our colonists must be compared. 


THE ROOMS-OF- THEeSEGum 
| PERIOD 


The material exhibited on this floor! in the central 
gallery and the rooms opening from it represents 
fully the expression of the rococo taste of the eigh- 
teenth century as 1t was followed in America. It in- 
cludes not only interior woodwork and furniture but 
also American-made silver and imported ceramics, 
chandeliers, wall-paper, and textiles such as were 
_used in the Colonies. Canvases by American painters 
of the eighteenth century hang on the walls. 


1 For the arrangement of the rooms see the floor plan at the end of 
this Handbook. 


SECOND FLOOR 1) 


OO 


Peenites tt TLON GALLERY 





The modern trim and cornice of the architectural 
setting of this room are reproduced from elements 
found on the elaborate mantelpiece which stood 
originally in the old Beekman house in Turtle Bay, 
New York, and is preserved in the New York His- 
torical Society (fig. 73). This house, dating from 
1763, was one of the fine residences of the city; it 
has seemed particularly appropriate to recall it here, 
as it well typifies the domestic architecture of this 
second period in New York, of which very little still 
remains. Work of this time may be studied in St. 
Paul’s Chapel and in the Van Cortlandt house in 
Van Cortlandt Park. The original Beekman house 
was built on the corner of what is now First Avenue 
and Fifty-first Street. 

On the elaborate door, the scrolled pediment, 
decorated mouldings, and architrave enframement © 
are exact reproductions of the overmantel treatment 
in the old house, being casts in plaster of the actual 
detail, taken through the courtesy of the New York 
Historical Society. The cornice with its leaf and egg- 
and-dart mouldings follows the old cornice, very 
slightly raised in scale to accompany the greater 
ceiling height, as are also the pilaster caps with their 
cabochon carving. 

Here is shown a representative collection of the 
decorative arts of the second period, which reached 
its full expression in the third quarter of the eigh- 
teenth century. 

The furniture, chiefly of mahogany, which began 
to supersede walnut in the second quarter of the cen- 


158 THE AS MOE RAC AY NO ee 


tury, carries out the rococo spirit in its forms and in 
the varied but typical carved decoration. The cabri- 
ole leg predominates with occasional exceptions. 
Turning as an important method of decoration has 
entirely disappeared and the curved line plays an im- 
portant part in practically every design. 

The relation between the decorative detail of the 
woodwork and that on some of the furniture gives 
point to the assertion of a common basis of inspira- 
tion and a common vocabulary of expression. Furni- 
ture with pilasters and denticulated cornices, such as 
those on the imposing New England secretary 
(fig. 58), is closely related to the architectural back- 
ground. This piece is of historic interest in that 
Washington used it at the Craigie house in Cam- 
bridge at the beginning of the Revolutionary War. 
Chairs with openwork splats or large easy chairs 
with soft upholstery of old damask or brocade show 
various types of the period. 

A number of cases of silver in variation of the 
rococo days are shown on the tables. Two of these 
Cases contain fine pieces made by Paul Revere, the 
patriot. The work of this period bearing his mark is 
probably all from his own hands, although much of 
his later work was made by his apprentices and work- 
men. T'wo other cases of silver express the same spirit 
of design and represent several Colonial silversmiths. 

Finely carved chandeliers of English make would 
have been quite in accord with the character of this 
room. Their carving echoes the detail on the furni- 
ture and woodwork. Many chandeliers were im- 
ported, and as authority for the use of carved wooden 
lights of this period we have the advertisements of 
cabinet-makers. Wall brackets of carved wood, plain, 


CgL1 NI LTINd “HYOA MAN ‘qsQOH NVWAAAd AHL WOUd 
M AHL “WOOTE ANOOgS ‘AUATIVO NIV “EE 


STIVLAG SMOTTIOA AUOMAOO 





160 THE AMER TC AN ow lene 


painted, or gilded, were also used to carry candelabra 
of porcelain or silver. An interesting document for 
the use of such brackets and chandeliers is contained 
in the following notice from a New York paper of 1771: 


“MINSHULL 

“Carver and GILpER late of London takes this method to in- 
form Ladies and Gentlemen, that. . . he makes Frames for 
Looking Glasses, Pictures fram’d and Glass’d, Girondoles, 
Chimney Pieces, Window Cornishes, Candle Stands, Sideboard 
Tables, Chandeliers, Brackets, Watch and Clock Cases, Chairs 
carved; Papier Machee Bordering, Figures and Busts; Cornishes 
for Rooms either in Plaster or Paper on the most reasonable 
Teérms.”’ 

The figures and busts were evidently of the order 
of those advertised by Garrat Noel in the New York 
Mercury of December 24, 1753, the subjects of which 
were thoroughly characteristic of the attitude of 
mind of our people interested in the romantic past. 

“—Likewise the following curious Bustos, fit furniture for gentle- 
man’s houses, in Plaster of Paris, plain, polished and burnished in 
gold with black pedestals, all very fine drapery viz. Shakespeare 
and Milton, Homer and Virgil, Horace and Tully, Cicero and 
Plato, Caesar and Seneca, Prior and Congreve, Addison and 
Pope, Lock and Newton, Dryden and Gay, Venus and Apollo, 
Ovid and Julia.” 

The perishable nature of their material accounts in 
part for the rather general absence of those orna- 
ments, which originally stood upon many of the man- 
telpieces and little pedestals between the broken 
pediments of the overmantels, desks, and highboys. 

A representative group of imported teapots of the 
period is shown in the cases under the window; the 
American-made silver reiterates the designs and forms. 

Three portraits in this gallery are the work of John 
Singleton Copley. That of Timothy Folger, merchant 


SE oO ND F LOLO R LOT 


and magistrate of Nantucket, bears a signature and 
the date 1764, having been painted when the artist 
was twenty-seven years of age. The portrait of 
Colonel Epes Sargent, who held his commission 
under George III, was painted probably before 1760, 
as well as that of his wife. Other examples of Cop- 
ley’s paintings may be studied in Gallery 16. Joseph 
Blackburn is represented by the portraits of the Hon- 
orable William Greenleaf and Mary Brown Greenleat. 

A small group of American miniatures of this period 
is to be seen in the Alexandria ballroom. These little 
ivory portraits include those of Stephen Salisbury and 
Mrs. Paul Revere by Copley; George Washington by 
John Ramage; George Washington, Nathanael 
Greene, and the mother of Chief Justice Taney by 
Charles Willson Peale; and Mr. and Mrs. John Wilson 
by James Peale. Miniatures were very personal be- 
longings in those days. Women wore those of their 
loved ones on necklaces and bracelets. No stronger 
evidence of Washington’s love for his wife is found 
than one thus penned by George Washington Parke 
Custis in his Memoirs of Washington: “He wore 
around his neck the miniature-portrait of his wife. 
This he had worn through all the vicissitudes of his 
eventful career, from the period of his marriage to 
the last days at Mount Vernon.” 


Peecto rk §-OF FY EXHIBIT RON 
GEA Sis 17 ERAN 


The paneled chimney-breast at the end of the alcove 
has formed the basis for the architectural treatment. 
This mantelpiece has also its own close associations 
with Washington, especially during the last month of 


162 THE AMERICA N OV Gaee 


his life, standing as it did in the office of Gadsby’s 
Tavern, Alexandria, from which a doorway opened 
upon a dignified porch (owned by the Museum but 
not yet installed). Before this porch took place the 
scene so charmingly described by George Washington 
Parke Custis: 


“Tt was in November of the last days that the General visited 
Alexandria upon business, and dined with a few friends at the 
City Hotel. Gadsby, the most accomplished of hosts, requested 
the General’s orders for dinner, promising that there was good 
store of canvas-back ducks in the larder. Very good, sir, replied 
the chief, give us some of them, with a chafing-dish, some 
hominy, and a bottle of good Madeira, and we shall not complain. | 

“No sooner was it known in town that the General would stay 
to dinner, than the cry was for the parade of a new company, 
called the Independent Blues, commanded by Captain Piercy, 
an officer of the Revolution; the merchant closed his books, the 
mechanic laid by his tools, the drum and fife went merrily round, 
and in the least possible time the Blues had fallen into their 
ranks, and were in full march for the headquarters. 

“Meantime the General had dined, had given his only toast of 
“All our Friends,’ and finished his last glass of wine, when an 
officer of the Blues was introduced, who requested, in the name of 
Captain Piercy, that the Commander-in-Chief would do the 
Blues the honor to witness a parade of the corps. The General 
consented, and repaired to the door of the hotel, looking toward 
the public square accompanied by Col. Fitzgerald, Dr. Craik, 
Mr. Keith, Mr. Herbert, and several other gentlemen. The 
troops went through many evolutions with great spirit, and con- 
cluded by firing several volleys. When the parade was ended, 
the General ordered the author of the Recollections to go to 
Capt. Piercy and express to him the gratification which he, the 
General, experienced in the very correct and soldierly evolutions, 
marchings, and firing of the Independent Blues. Such commen- 
dation, from such a source, it may well be supposed, was re- 
ceived with no small delight by the young soldiers, who marched 
off in fine spirits, and were soon after dismissed. Thus the 
author of the Recollections had the great honor of bearing the 
last military order issued in person by the Father of his Country.” 


FIG. 74. 





ALCOVE WITH MANTELPIECE PROM GADSBY 'S 
TAVERN, ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA, P93 


164 THE AMERICAN WING 


The original cornice, chair-rail, and baseboard 
attached to the mantel are reproduced around the 
room, while simple architraves surround the windows. 
The scrolled pediment with its rosettes, the Doric 
triglyphs adorning the frieze, and the fluted pilasters 
of the overmantel give this chimney-breast unusual 
distinction (fig. 74). The balustrade which flanks the 
entrance is composed of parts of an old New England 
stairway in the Bolles Collection. 

The alcove has been painted a gray-blue, following 
a sample of the original color on one of the old mantel- 
pieces from the Beekman house in New York. 

The painted English wall-paper is of the period and 
is typical of a large group of imported wall hangings. 
Beautiful wall-papers were long used in the Colo- 
nies. ‘‘Paper for Rooms” was advertised in the Bos- 
ton Weekly News Letter of May 30, 1734, and “ Roll 
Paper for Rooms” in the same news-sheet on June 10, 
1736. These papers were either of Chinese origin or 
those panels painted in England after conventional 
Chinese patterns, in glorious greens, blues, and pinks. 
Of this old English wall-paper the Museum has 
secured enough to cover the walls of this large alcove 
opening off the mid-eighteenth-century gallery. 

Our authority for its use as well as a good general 
description of it is found in the following letter written 
by Thomas Hancock of Boston to Mr. John Rowe, 
stationer in London, under date of January 23, 1738, 
at the time when Hancock was finishing the building 
of his splendid stone mansion, the mansion he be- 
queathed to and that was lived in by his famous 
nephew, John Hancock, the very active “Son of 
Liberty” and president of the first Continental Con- 
gress, whose home became famous for the lavish hos- 


ar COMNeD. Flt Oc0ek 165 


pitality bestowed upon all those engaged in defense 
of the American constitutional right to self-govern- 
ment: 


“Sir, Inclosed you have the Dimensions of a Room for a Shaded 
Hanging to be Done after the Same Pattorn I have sent per Capt. 
Tanner who will Deliver it to you. It’s for my own House 
& Intreat the favour of you to Get it Done for me, to Come 
Early in the Spring, or as Soon as the nature of the Thing will 
admitt. The pattorn is all was Left of a Room Lately Come over 
here, & it takes much in y® Town & will be the only paper- 
hanging for Sale here wh. am of Opinion may Answer well. 
Therefore desire you by all means to Get mine well Done & as 
Cheap as Possible, & if they can make it more Beautifull by 
adding more Birds flying here & there, with Some Landskip 
at the Bottom should Like it well. Let the Ground be the Same 
Colour of the Pattorn. At the Top & Bottom was a narrow 
Border of about 2 Inches wide wh. would have to mine. About 
3 or 4 Years ago my friend Francis Wilks, Esq",’ had a hanging 
Done in the Same manner but much handsomeer Sent over here 
for M’ Saml Waldon of this place, made by one Dunbar in 
Aldermanbury, where no doubt he or Some of his Successors 
may be found. In the other parts of these Hangings are Great 
Variety of Different Sorts of Birds, Peacocks, Macoys, Squirril, 
Monkys, Fruit & Flowers, etc. But a Greater Variety in the 
above mentioned of Mr. Waldon’s & Should be fond of having 
mine done by the Same hand if to be mett with. I design if this 
pleases me to have two Rooms more done for myself. I Think 
they are handsomeer & Better than Painted hangings Done in 
Oyle, so I Beg your particular Care in procuring this for me, 
& that the pattorns may be Taken Care off & Return’d with 
my Goods.” 


From this interesting document we can be assured 
that there was a certain vogue for these wall-papers 
in Boston at this time, and that painted canvas 
panels were not uncommon, examples of which are 
still in existence. 


1A merchant of London who was the agent of Massachusetts in 
England from 1728 to 1742. 


166 THE AMER ECAN WEIN G 


The portrait in crayon of Mrs. Joseph Barrell of 
Boston (née Anna Pierce), painted in 1766, repre- 
sents another interesting phase of Copley’s work. 

The furniture brings together some good examples 
of shell-decorated, block-front work of Rhode Island 
provenance. The bookcase secretary with six shells 
(fig. §9) is very definitely attributed to John Goddard 
of Newport and from internal evidence several of the 
other pieces may also be attributed to him. 

A group of silver in a small case before the win- 
dow is by a well-known silversmith of Newport, 
Samuel Vernon. The little tall clock is the work 
of Thomas Claggett, who carried on his trade in 
Newport, Rhode Island, from 1730 until his death 


in 1749. 


SSS — 


ROOM FROM ORIOL EQS OG Wp tke 
Co-U NT Y (SM AR eee 

We next turn to Maryland—settled in 1634 by the 
brothers of Cecil Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore 
—the only colony where there was true tolerance and 
liberty of conscience, and where Lord Baltimore pre- 
scribed the famous Toleration Act (1649), which pro- 
vided that “‘noe person . . . professing to believe 
in Jesus Christ, shall from henceforth bee any wales 
troubled, molested, or discountenanced for or in 
respect to his or her religion.” 

This particular room was removed from a brick 
house in Oriole, Somerset County, on the eastern 
shore of Maryland, probably erected about the mid- 
dle of the eighteenth century. It 1s fairly represen- 
tative of the homes of the men who officered the fa- 
mous Maryland Line, whose valor saved Washing- 


See ChOIN Dud FL O10°R 167 


ton’s army from destruction at the Battle of Long 
Island, and who also played such distinctive parts in 
the subsequent battles of White Plains, Harlem 
Heights, Germantown, Cowpens, Eutaw Springs, 
Guilford, and Camden. 

Although dating from the middle of the eighteenth 
century, this paneled room preserves an earlier 
quality in its disposition which marks it as a descend- 
ant of the early Georgian interior. The effect is some- 
what marred by the mantelpiece of a later date than 
the room, which, with the small strip panels beside it, 
has replaced what was probably a generous fireplace- 
opening surrounded by a bolection-moulding and 
without a shelf. The walls are paneled to the ceiling 
and are subdivided horizontally by a heavy chair- 
rail. The mouldings of the cornice, the panels, and 
the architraves around doors and windows are con- 
ventional. But unusual is the curious break in the 
architrave above the doors and windows, which re- 
peats the break of the panels above (fig. 75). 

The tall window embrasures with window-seats 
give height and dignity. The handsome shell cup- 
boards flanking the fireplace are finely proportioned 
and the shells are well carved. The pilasters on 
pedestals, flanking the fireplace, constitute one of the 
most usual treatments of the fireplace wall. 

The room is an example of the effect which can be 
obtained with a few simple mouldings, well placed 
and in proper scale. The wood is yellow pine chosen 
for its freedom from knots. 

In using Siena marble for fireplace facings and 
hearth we follow the precedent of the very general 
importation of foreign marbles into the Colonies. 
These facings and hearth are not old, but in the 


168 THE AMERICAN) WING 


room from Marmion on this floor may be seen the 
original facings. One change has been made in the 
room, the substitution of a door for a window to per- 
mit of access from the main gallery. 

In the furnishing of this room are brought together 
pieces, chiefly in walnut, which represent the earlier 
examples of the cabriole period. Walnut was the usual 
wood employed. The upholstered settee is probably 
unique among American-made pieces. It is the acme 
of the popularly called Queen Anne style and is of 
Philadelphia workmanship, made for Stenton, the 
famous mansion of James Logan, built before 1728. 
A number of fine walnut chairs of the same period are 
enriched with carving in rococo motifs. The highboy 
‘s veneered, inlaid, and carved. The use of japanned 
furniture is illustrated in the tall clock, the highboy 
and lowboy of red tortoise-shell background, and the 
gold and black looking-glass. A tea-table, a wing 
chair, and other smaller chairs are all related in the 
character of their design. 

The upholstery materials are chiefly oid velvets and 
needlework which were used much with this early 
Georgian walnut, although damasks, too, were usual. 

The japanned highboy and lowboy are rare pieces | 
of American manufacture. Along with English join- 
ers, japanners came over here to ply their trade. Some 
of them were versatile, as may be noted by the adver- 
tisement in the Boston News Letter of December 1, 
1748: “David Mason, Jappanner in Wings-Lane, 
does all Sorts of Japanning, varnishing, Painting and 
gilding . . . and at the same place the curious 
may be entertained with a great variety of curious 
experiments in electricity.” John Julius Sorge was 
similarly mentioned in the New York Gazette of 


ANVIAUVW SALNNOO LASUAWOS SATOINUO WOUL WOOU “CL old 





Tyo T HOE VAVMeE RR 4G CAL NO Walon 


July 21, 1755, as being “very much noted among the 
nobility in Germany for divers curious experiments, 
makes all sorts of Japan-Work of divers fine colours, 
to that degree, that none heretofore hath ever ex- 
ceeded him in that Art.” 

A japanned highboy was listed at a high value in 
the following bill for damages filed by Martin How- 
ard, the stamp-master of Newport, Rhode Island, 
whose house was raided by the Sons of Liberty on 
August 27, 1765, the items evidencing not only the 
type of furnishing of a Colonial house, but the ear- 
nestness with which these local Sons of Liberty acted: 


“A Shagreen case of knives & forks almost new £1.10 

A Scrutoire and bookcase with glass & doors damaged & 
broken £2 

A large Mahogany table broken to pieces £2.05 

A small desk lost £1.10s 

A red cedar desk and book case cut into pieces £3.10 

A small tea table .10s 

A couch frame lost .10s 

Four large family pictures, gilt frames, one by Sir Peter 
Lily £35 

Several mezzotints ditto, broken & damaged .1§s 

An excutcheon or coat of arms of Mr. Kay .10s 

A Japanned tea table and tea board destroyed £1.10 

A Japanned high chest of drawers broken & lost £4. 

A Japanned dining table £2.10 

Two large chairs, leather buckets, glass lanterns £2.05.” 


An advertisement by G. Duyckinck in the New 
York Gazette of October 13, 1753, of the importation 
for sale of “Japanners prints,” calls attention to the 
prevalent use of prints by the makers of the lacquered 
furniture so much in vogue at the time. This novel 
use of prints is demonstrated on a black-lacquered 
English tall case clock. The case of this clock 1s em- 


SECOND FLOOR Teel 


bellished with large colored mezzotint portraits of 
King George III, Queen Caroline, and William Pitt, 
at this period popular portraits, judging from inven- 
tory records, throughout the Colonies. 

The two portraits in this room, of George and 
Martha Washington, are the work of the Maryland 
painter, Charles Willson Peale, whose mezzotint of 
the Earl of Chatham hangs in the Philadelphia 
room. (Other examples of his work can be seen in 
Gallery 16.) They are beautiful examples of Peale’s 
work while abroad, and carry the English tradition 
of having been painted from memory while Peale 
was in England. 

Over the fireplace is set a fine and unusual mantel 
mirror of walnut combined with carved and gilded 
details. The brass sconces are English of the period. 
Such lighting fixtures are contemporarily described 
as “arms,” and are very frequently mentioned in 
advertisements. 

The lacquer-red, shell-topped cupboards reproduce 
the original color found underneath the modern layers 
of paint, as is true of the color of the paneling. Traces 
of gold were found on the arrises of the shells and in 
the shelf edges. In that flanking the fireplace on the 
right has been assembled a group of the salt-glazed 
wares of England of the kind so freely imported into 
the Colonies in the period 1735-1770. In the one on 
the left are portions of a very complete dinner set of 
the order of the “very fine Nankin tea-table sets with 
gold edges” advertised here by John Morton (1767). 
These were owned by Thomas Buchanan, a New 
York merchant prominent at that time. Below the 
doors are sliding shelves which can be pulled out to 
form a counter. 


[772 THE AIM EAR IC ANS Val ee 





BALLROOM FROM ALE XA 
Vile RGCrlp Nel 





The great Assembly Room we are now entering 
came from Alexandria, Virginia. It is one of three 
beautiful interiors on this floor from this, the oldest 
of the Colonies—first settled at Jamestown in 1607— 
which gave to the nation four of our first five presi- 
dents, Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe. 
The splendid homes of these four presidents—Mount 
Vernon, Monticello, Montpelier, and Oak Hill—are 
fortunately still in existence, and are all of architec- 
tural dignity. In their beautiful interior furnishings 
they were fairly representative of the artistic atmos- 
phere in which many of the Fathers of the Republic 
lived. 

This large and lofty room, of much historic interest 
in its associations with Washington and Lafayette, 
was taken out of the old City Tavern at Alexandria, 
Virginia. Its date is fixed in the announcement by 
John Wise, under date of February 20, 1793, of his 
removal ‘“‘to his new and elegant Three-Story brick- 
House, fronting the West-end of the Market House 
which was built for a tavern, and has twenty commo- 
dious well-furnished Rooms in it, where he has laid 
in a stock of good old Liquors—.” Alexandria was 
located on the highroad over which travelers from 
Williamsburg, Richmond, and the south passed on 
their way to Philadelphia, the national capital; as a 
rule they were transported by a line of stage coaches 
owned jointly (1791) by John Gadsby (who became 
the tavern’s new proprietor) and the keepers of The 


Spread Eagle and The Swan Inns at Philadelphia and 


VINIDUIA SVINGNVXA9TVY WOU WOOUTIVA sey “Ord 





174 THE AMERICAN WING 


Lancaster. Therefore the tavern was long the stop- 
ping-place of many of our distinguished statesmen, as 
well as of those who sought out Washington when in- 
retirement at Mount Vernon, eight miles away. 

That its well-established reputation was jealously 
guarded by ‘“‘mine host” Gadsby may be noted by 
the frequent notices which appeared during the year 
1798 in the Alexandria papers to the effect “that 
while the City Tavern is supplied with every article 
requisite for the comfort of those who honour him 
with their custom . . . it shall be his peculiar duty 
to merit their favor by preserving order and pro- 
priety. For the more effectually carrying this his 1n- 
tention into execution, no species of gambling what 
ever will be allowed. . . .’—a commentary, as 
well, upon the prevalence of professional gamblers in 
public houses during the days of the Early Republic. 

The assemblies held in this room were arranged by 
the Washington Society of Alexandria. Washington’s 
view of dancing is briefly contained in the following 
letter from Mount Vernon to the managers, under 
date of November 12, 1799, but a few days before his 
death: 


“Mount Vernon, 12 Nov., 1799. 
“Gentlemen: 

“Mrs. Washington and I have been honored with your polite 
invitation to the assemblies in Alexandria this winter, thank 
you for this mark of your attention. But alas! our dancing days 
are no more. We wish, however, all those who relish so agreeable 
and innocent an amusement all the pleasure the season will 
afford them. 

Your most obedient and obliged humble servant, 
Go. Washington.”’ 


The birthnight balls were sreatly enjoyed by Wash- 


ington, who always remained until late hours. They 


SECOND FLOOR is 


were opened with the playing of the President’s 
March. Their story has been left us by George Wash- 
ington Parke Custis, Washington’s adopted son. 


“The Birthnight Ball was instituted at the close of the Revolu- 
tionary War and its first celebration, we believe was held at 
Alexandria, celebrations of the 4th of July being considered a 
National Festival, while the peculiarity attending the former was 
that its parade and ceremonies always closed with the birthnight 
ball. In the larger cities where public balls were customary, the 
birthnight in the olden time, as now, was the Gala Assembly of 
the Season—attended by all the beauty and fashion, by the 
foreign Ambassadors and strangers of distinction at the seat of 
Government. The First President always attended on the birth- 
night. The etiquette was not to open the ball until the arrival 
of him in whose honor it was given; but, so remarkable was the 
punctuality of Washington in all his engagements, whether for 
business or pleasure, that he was never waited for a moment in 
appointments for either. Among the brilliant illustrations of a 
birthnight of five and thirty years ago, the most unique and 
imposing were the groups of young and beautiful ladies wearing 
in their hair, bandeaus or scrolls, having embroidered thereon in 
language both ancient and modern the motto of “Live the Presi- 
dent.” The Minuet (now obsolete) for the graceful and elegant 
dancing of which Washington was conspicuous, in the vice-regal 
days of Lord Botetourt in Virginia, declined down after the 
Revolution. The Commander in Chief danced for his last time, 
a minuet, in 1781 at the ball given in Fredericksburg, in honor of 
the French and American officers on their return from the tri- 
umphs of Yorktown. The last birthnight attended by the 
venerable chief was in Alexandria, 22nd February, 1798. Indeed 
he always appeared to enjoy the gay and festive scene exhibited 
at the birthnight-balls, and usually was accustomed to remain 
to a late hour; -for, remarkable as he was for reserve, and the 
dignified gravity inseparable from his nature, Washington ever 
looked with the most kind and favoring eye upon the rational 
and elegant pleasures of life.” 


Dancing played an important part in America’s 
social life in the eighteenth century. Dancing masters 


176 TH E CAGMeR Ra C AUN WaliNee 


had long freely advertised their ability to teach the 
newest steps. The assemblies, which filled with joy 
many an evening, invariably took place in the assem- 
bly rooms which were part of the furnishing of almost 
all first-class taverns. The following description of 
one in Oeller’s Hotel, Philadelphia, was given (1794) 
by Henry Wansey, that English clothier who came 
over to make a study of the social and economic con- 
ditions prevailing here. His description of the splen- 
dor of the room enables us to form a realistic picture 
of the ballroom of the day: 


“The Assembly Room, to which we now returned, must not 
pass undescribed: it is a most elegant room, sixty feet square, 
with a handsome music gallery at one end. It was papered after 
the French taste, with the Pantheon figures in compartments, 
imitating festoons; pillars, and groups of antique drawings, in 
the same style as lately introduced in the most elegant houses in 
London.”’ 

It was in the Alexandria assembly room that 
George Washington attended his last birthnight ball, 
February 22, 1798, the following notice of which 
appeared in the Alexandria papers of the same day: 


“ The birthday of our worthy Fellow Citizen Gen. GEORGE WasH- 
incTON, will be celebrated by a Ball at Mr Gadsby’s Tavern 
This Evening in which the gentlemen of Alexandria and its 
vicinity, are invited to participate. Tickets of Admission to be 
at thesbarios 


Lafayette’s first association with this room was the 
public dinner given him in 1824 at which were present 
the Hon. John Quincy Adams, Commodores Rogers 
and Porter, and veterans of the Revolution. It is an 
interesting note that Robert E. Lee, though still a 
boy, was a marshal in the procession of Revolutionary 
veterans and personages which preceded the dinner. 


SeeeClOPN DW b a0 01k 17 


The following year Lafayette was also dined there 
by the Masonic Lodge of Washington. Lafayette’s 
toast, “Greece, let us help each other,” emphasizes 
the widespread interest here in that nation’s struggle 
for freedom, tangible evidences of which remain in the 
classical names of many of our cities, and the build- 
ings of the Neo-Greek style of architecture, the 
fashion for which was largely inspired by heartfelt 
sympathy for Greece in her resistance against Turkish 
domination. 

This room of unusual size, although dating from 
1793, is a consistent example of the architectural 
woodwork of the second period and well confirms the 
statement that styles carried on for many years after 
the date of their greatest popularity, particularly in 
provincial districts. Here we have walls paneled only 
to the chair-rail height although the chimney-breasts 
are wood from floor to ceiling. The openings are 
symmetrically placed (fig. 76). 

The chief enrichment consists of the modillion 
course in the cornice with dentils below, the scrolled 
pediments over fireplaces and doors with dentil 
bands of smaller scale, recalling those in the cornice, 
and the fretwork carried around the chair-rail. 

The hanging balcony for musicians is a feature as 
charming as it is unusual, the well-formed posts and 
balustrade adding a variety to the design. 

The light gray-green with which the woodwork 1s 
painted reproduces as exactly as possible the original 
color found under many layers of more recent paint 
when the woodwork was cleaned. 

The architraves around doors and windows and the 
mouldings of the paneling are conventional in profile. 
The only suggestion of the lateness of date lies in the 


178 T FH Eis MCEORS1 (CeON Sew aia 


tendency toward refinement in these mouldings and 
‘n the scale of the cornice and door-heads. 

The very considerable wall space in this large room 
affords an opportunity for the arrangement of a series 
of side-chairs of the early part of the second period, 
which shows the employment of the cabriole leg and 
of the solid splat back through its simplest and earli- 
est forms to its highly developed expression. These 
chairs of walnut include fine examples of Philadelphia 
and New England early Georgian work, from which 
through easy transitions can be followed the changes 
toward the middle of the century whence the Chip- 
pendale fashion took its departure. 

The upholstery fabrics are all of the period and 
give some idea of the variety in color and design of 
the rich materials which were so generally used. 

About the room are set not only chairs, but tables of 
three sorts: tripod baluster tables with tip top, the 
pier table of mahogany with marble top, and the oval, 
walnut, drop-leaf dining-table. These tables show 
various characteristics and treatments of the period. 

The remarkable looking-glass on the west wall is 
an example of the finest sort of American-made look- 
ing-glass of the second period. Again we have the 
scrolled pediment, the carved and gilded mouldings, 
the dark walnut surfaces which have a distinct deco- 
rative quality, and the gilded pheasant in the center 
of the top. This glass is of very unusual size. 

The brass chandeliers of English workmanship, 
while of a period slightly antedating the woodwork, 
show the beginning of a new influence whose consum- 
mation is seen on the floor below. There remains in 
them the general form of chandeliers of the second 
period, and the gadrooning which decorates them is a 


SeC-O°N sD {FIL 0710 R 179 


detail found frequently on the furniture on this floor. 

Venetian blinds were in general use by this time. 
Few of the old ones survive, but for practical pur- 
poses the Museum has installed modern blinds of 
similar character. 

The portraits on the walls of this room are by Gil- 
bert Stuart, America’s great native-born portrait 
painter of the eighteenth century. 





ROOM fer OM: MA RM LON, KING 
PeeeeewG eC OU NT.Y j VIRGINIA 





Highly decorated rooms in the eighteenth century 
were not confined to dwellings in cities and their 
suburbs. This elaborate and historic room was taken 
out of “Marmion,” King George County, Virginia, 
hidden away in the wilds of the peninsula formed by 
the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers, eighteen 
miles from Fredericksburg and twenty-five miles 
south of Mount Vernon. 

It stood on the estate first owned by that William 
Fitzhugh from whose letters has been gleaned so 
much information of the early economic and social 
life of Virginia. Elegance in home life was traditional 
with the Fitzhughs of Virginia. Among the first 
Fitzhugh’s letters to friends in London we find a de- 
scription (1686) of “my own Dwelling house fur- 
nished with all accommodations for a comfortable 
and gentile living, as a very good dwelling house with 
rooms in it, four of the best of these hung with 
tapestry or leather and nine of them plentifully 
furnished with all things necessary and convenient.” 
Again in 1698 he wrote, “I esteem it well politic as 
reputalle to furnish myself with a handsome cup- 


180 4H. Ee SAC MIRER dara Nee 


board of plate, which gives myself the present use 
and credit, is a sure friend at a dead lift without much 
loss, or is a certain portion for a child after my 
dicease’’—a realistic explanation of the abundance 
of plate at a time when the Colonies were without 
banking facilities. 

Local tradition has it that the present Marmion 
is the original home of William Fitzhugh. Its interior 
arrangement, however, dates it as having been built 
not earlier than the first quarter of the eighteenth 
century. The treatment of the pilasters and decora- 
tions in our room is very suggestive of those of the 
Clark house of Boston, supposed to have been built 
or remodeled in 1712. One of its rooms was decorated 
with the paintings on wooden panels which, however, 
were probably done in England by R.. Robinson. 
The date of this room from Marmion has not been 
definitely determined (it may have been done later 
than the house itself), but it may well have been 
constructed before the middle of the century. The 
heir of William Fitzhugh was his son John. In the 
later part of the century it was owned by Philip Fitz- 
hugh, at whose decease it was purchased by J. Ball, 
who sold it to George Lewis, who had been a captain 
in Baylor’s regiment, was commander of Washing- 
ton’s life-guard, and in whose arms General Mercer 
breathed his last on the battlefield at Princeton. He 
was the son of Colonel Fielding Lewis and Elizabeth 
Washington, the sister of General Washington. 

In this room we have a use of pilasters and com- 
plete entablature based upon the Ionic order. Stile 
and rail paneling, both above and below the chair- 
rail, fills the space between pilasters. The cornice 
with modillions and dentils varies considerably from 


"LL Old 


VINIOUIA ‘ALNQOO ADUOAD ONIN 








182 THE AMERICAN WING 


the classic formula in its relation of parts, but the 
whole entablature is reasonably complete (fig. 77). 

The door frame and the window sash are of Vir- 
ginia walnut, as is the door with its original brass rim 
lock. 

The curious plan of the room results from the 
placing of one end chimney which requires a fireplace 
set at a diagonal. An effort was made to compose 
symmetrically the end wall by flanking the window 
with corner cupboards. This has not been wholly 
successful since it adds still another angle to that of 
the fireplace. 

The crude painted decoration carries out the idea of 
the rococo influence of the period. The marbleizing 1s 
reminiscent of both English and continental usage of 
the early part of the century. The landscape panels 
recall the painted woodwork of France, as do the bits 
of rococo detail, painted to imitate ormolu, which are 
placed informally here and there intermingled with 
vases or cornucopiae of flowers. The effect is pleasing 
in tone though crude in execution. 

The painting is by an unknown hand. While much 
of the work is somewhat crude, the flowers especially 
would indicate a brush which had had some training 
in interior decoration. The probability is that the 
work was done by some itinerant Colonial artist who 
wandered from place to place, occasionally advertis- 
ing his arrival along the lines of a notice in the 
Pennsylvania Chronicle of June 27, 1768: 


“PAINTING performed by ISAAC WESTON, in the neatest 
Manner, viz. Coach, Chaise, Chair, or any kind of Landscape 
Painting;—also Lettering and Gilding. He will take the utmost 
care to satisfy all those who will favour him with their commands; 
and is to be spoke with at THOMAS WILLIAMS’ in Second 
Street between Market and Chestnut Streets.” 


Sab. GOWN D =F b.010.8 183 


The original Siena marble fireplace facing, with its 
white moulding and keystone, lends a bit of sumptu- 
ous color. 

The furniture is under the full Chippendale influ- 
ence, of bold simple design, carved with a variety of 
detail. The marble-topped pier table of Philadelphia 
provenance has a typical fretwork with carved ro- 
settes, gadrooning at the edge of the apron, acanthus 
leaves on the knee of the cabriole, and ball and claw 
feet. The small armchair with openwork splat is a 
characteristic example, while two varieties of easy 
chair with short carved cabriole legs suggest comfort. 
The card-tables are of finely figured woods. The mir- 
ror over the fireplace was part of the original furnish- 
ings of the room and is in the customary Chippen- 
dale vein. 

The curtains and the covering of one wing chair are 
old red brocatelle, a material much used in conjunc- 
tion with damask and needlework for hangings and 
upholstery. 

The minor appointments of the room consist of 
metalwork and ceramics of appropriate kinds. A 
pair of Chelsea candlesticks, a brass and iron candle- 
stand, andirons and fireback are all of types for 
which we have ample authority from the copious ad- 
vertisements and inventories of the period. 





RCs Geeta OuE 2H Isl A DeE L.P Hol A 


Possibly no other extant room of those eventful 
days just prior to the Revolution carries with it so 
many memories of the artistic and social life during 
that momentous period of this nation’s history as 
does this one. It was taken from a house still stand- 


134 THE AMERICAN Wal NaG 


ing at 244 South Third Street, Philadelphia, which 
had been built in 1768 by Charles Steadman and sold 
by him to Samuel Powel in the following year. Fora 
thorough appreciation and understanding of the 
sumptuous furnishings and the historical atmosphere 
which the Museum has given it, some knowledge of 
the personality of its owner, Samuel Powel, is needed. 

Samuel Powel was one of the many youths who, 
after graduating from Colonial colleges, were given 
the advantages of extensive foreign travel, thereby 
gaining an intimate insight into the manner of living 
in the Old World and an acquaintance with some of 
those men who were making the world’s history. His 
lifelong interest in art began early, as may be de- 
duced from a letter from Benjamin Smith Barton, 
M.D., the naturalist, written in 1789 while aboard 
the ship Apollo, “the information being so given 
him” by his fellow-traveler, the eminent Quaker 
preacher, John Pemberton. “Mr. Benjamin West 
went to Rome with Mr. Samuel Powel of Philadel- 
phia about the year 1760. Mr. Powel bore Mr. 
West’s expenses to Rome for Mr. West had no re- 
sources in pecuniary matters of his own.” 

Fortunately, enough of Powel’s letters have been 
preserved to give us a glimpse into his journeyings. 
In 1763 he was presented to King George III and 
delivered to him an address from his Alma Mater, the 
college in Philadelphia; he introduced Benjamin 
West to Mr. Penn. During his stay in Rome he 
had many conversations with the Duke of York, was 
received by and conversed with His Holiness, and at 
Turin was presented to the King of Sardinia. In 1764 
we find him paying a most interesting visit to Vol- 
taire. 


Ba G.OIN D MESL:O}0 R 18S 


The impression made upon him by the splendid 
houses he was visiting abroad unquestionably inter- 
ested him in the idea of a fine house for occupancy on 
his return. The elegance of such a house is sug- 
gested in a letter to Powel from his friend, George 
Roberts, in Philadelphia (1763)—a description which 
would have well fitted the house at 244 South Third 
Street, the grounds and garden in its rear, upon 
which the room we are now entering faced, being 
beautifully laid out and adorned with costly statuary, 
possibly acquired in the course of his travels: “In- 
deed your house is so finely situated that it looks like 
the habitation of a Turkish Bashaw (the front wall 
being very high from the street occasioned by the 
late regulations of the pavement), and the enclosure 
the parade of a Seraglio—’tis the noblest spot in the 
city—don’t you wish to see it?” 

Powel evidently wrote home as to the advisability 
of bringing with him furniture from England of a 
quality fitting for his proposed new mansion. From 
this course he was probably dissuaded by his uncle, 
Samuel Morris, who wrote him on May 18, 1765: 
‘Household goods may be had as cheap and as well 
made from English patterns. In the humour people 
are in here, a man is in danger of becoming invidiously 
distinguished, who buys any thing in England which 
our Tradesmen can furnish. I have heard the joiners 
here object this against Dr. Morgan & others who 
brought their furniture with them’’—convincing 
contemporary testimony to the intense local feeling 
against English wares as a result of the stamp tax, as 
well as a tribute to the superb handiwork of the Phil- 
adelphia cabinet-makers with which the room is now 
furnished. 


186 THE AMER TUGCANe WeDNS 


Powel’s interest in art was evidently a lasting one. 
Matthew Pratt, the artist, whose picture, painted in 
1765, of a group of young American painters receiving 
instruction from Benjamin West, hangs in Gallery 
16, notes his receiving a visit from Samuel Powel 
when he first took up his professional work in Phila- 
delphia, May 30, 1768. 

His activities led him into the field of politics and 
he served as mayor of Philadelphia from 1770 to 
1780, during the most momentous period of that 
city’s history. 

The Powel home was long famous in Philadelphia. 
John Adams, our second President, while awaiting 
the opening of the Continental Congress, notes in his 
diary under date of September 1, 1774, “We three 
visited a Mr. Cadwallader, a gentleman of large for- 
tune, a grand and elegant house and furniture! We 
then visited Mr. Powel, another splendid seat.” 
When the British army captured Philadelphia the 
Powel house became the headquarters of the Earl of 
Carlisle, one of the three commissioners appointed to 
attempt the establishing of peace. After Lord Howe’s 
evacuation of the city, General Washington made his 
headquarters with the Powels, and then commenced a 
friendship between him and Mr. and Mrs. Powel, 
possibly closer and more intimate than any in the 
later life of the soldier-statesman. 

The Powel house was known for its frequent 
entertainments, one of which was thus noted by 
Mrs. Bache in a letter to her father, Benjamin 
Franklin, then in Paris, under date of January 17, 
1779: 


1The elaborately carved pier table in this room came from the 
Cadwallader house. 


BEELGOIN Di -Fr0 OR 187 


“T have lately been several times invited abroad with the 
General and Mrs. Washington. He always inquires after you in 
the most affectionate manner and speaks of you highly. We 
danced at Mrs. Powel’s your birthday (Jan. 6, 1706 O.S.) or 
night I should say, in company together, and he told me it was 
the anniversary of his marriage (Jan. 6, 1759 O.S.); It was just 
twenty years that night.” 


In May, June, July, and August, 1787—all eventful 
months in the history of America, the months in 
which the Constitution was being framed—we find in 
Washington’s diary frequent mention of his break- 
fasting, dining, or drinking tea at the Powels’, for 
whom he had ordered three years before an enlarged 
copy of his oil portrait, painted in 1784 at Rocky Hill 
by Joseph Wright. The probabilities are that for 
some of the furnishings for Mount Vernon Washing- 
ton relied upon the Powels for advice, as in a letter 
~ to Colonel Biddle he wrote under date of Mount Ver- 

non, September 16, 1788, “I will thank you to pay 
Samuel Powel, Esq. for a chair which he was so good 
as to procure for me as a pattern.” Patterns in fur- 
niture were often imported from abroad by our city 
cabinet-makers for their own use, their own work in 
turn serving the same purpose for the provincial 
joiners. 

Such are a few of the historic memories clustering 
around this beautiful room, which may be considered 
as embodying the very essence of the decorative 
architectural treatment of our second period. The 
paneling is beautifully moulded, the cornice is simple 
but adequate, and the composition of the fireplace 
wall is distinguished. It must certainly be adjudged 
one of the finest interiors produced in the Colonies 


(fig. 78). 


188 TH EG AMER TCC NY? WV rien 


The decoration is spotted after a careful scheme. 
The cornice is given scale by the meander which 
brings dark points at regular intervals around the 
room. A dignified broken pediment with a delicate 
rendition of the same meander crowns the over- 
mantel. Applied carvings of rococo form fill the five 
mitred corners of the panel, and the frieze of the 
mantelpiece has richly carved consoles and central 
block—the focus of all the carved detail of the room. 
The window trim and the moulding about the fire- 
place opening, the chair-rail and the surbase of the 
low wainscot have considerable projection. 

The plaster relief of the ceiling, also filled with 
rococo forms, is a cast taken from the ceiling of the 
room adjoining the present room in its original loca- 
tion. The style of the two rooms was so similar that 
it seemed legitimate to show this use of decorative 
plasterwork here. There is decided French influence 
in this ceiling, in the swags of flowers, the groups of 
musical instruments and pendent masks, as well as 
in the general character of the large corner cartouches. 

The furniture has more than a little suggestion of 
the French fashion in its decoration. It is of the 
cabriole type, excepting the sofa which has the 
straight-moulded Chippendale legs. The elaborately 
carved highboy (fig. 55), the marble-topped pier table 
and the tall clock, the chairs (fig. 54) and the tea- 
table (fig. 56) are all the most elaborate and most 
superbly designed pieces of their respective forms 
made in this country under Chippendale influence. 
They all come from Philadelphia, where an unusually 
accomplished group of cabinet-makers had come to- 
gether. Except for the tall clock which 1s of walnut 
(fig. 57), the furniture is of mahogany of beautiful 





FIG, ae ROOM FROM PHILADELPHIA 


IgO THE AME Ril CAN SWolaee 


grain. The carving on all of these pieces is studiedly 
placed and finely executed. It includes a large variety 
of motifs following rococo usage. 

We learn that the magnificent highboys were essen- 
tially parlor pieces from a contemporary account of a 
pre-Revolutionary home in Philadelphia, printed in 
Watson’s Annals of Philadelphia (1830): 


“Every householder in that day deemed it essential to his con- 
venience and comfort to have an ample chest of drawers in his 
parlour or sitting-room, in which the linen and clothes of the 
family were always of ready access. It was no sin to rummage 
them before company! These drawers were sometimes nearly as 
high as the ceiling. At other times they had a writing desk about 
the centre with a falling lid to write upon when let down.” 


The curtains in this room are fashioned after those 
ordered by Governor William Franklin of New Jersey 
(the son of Benjamin Franklin) in a letter dated Bur- 
lington, November 15, 1763, and addressed to Wil- 
liam Strahan of London, in which the request was 
made for some “yellow silk and worsted Damask to 
suit some yellow Damask chairs and furniture I have 
in my dining room. The curtains are to be 3 yards 
and 1% long and four breadths in each curtain to be 
hung festoon fashion.” 

The use of yellow damask and other yellow mate- 
rials for curtains and chair-seats had long been cus- 
tomary. That interesting character, Judge Sewall, 
in 1720 sends to Boston for “Curtains and Vallins 
for a Bed, with Counterpane, Head-cloth and Tester 
of good yellow watr’d worsted camlet with Trimming 
well made, and Bases if it be the fashion. Send also 
of the same Camlet and Trimming, as may be enough 
to make Cushions for the Chamber Chairs.” 

Sir William Pepperell—merchant of Kittery, 


ee OOeNt Deh LrOrOek IgI 


Maine, and hero of Louisburg, whose portrait en- 
graved by Peter Pelham hangs in the Portsmouth 
room—furnished rooms in his daughter’s house with 
curtains and chair-seats of yellow, red, blue, and 
green damask. The use of this fine fabric was not 
confined to the great houses of the cities, as “8 
Mahogany chairs with Damask Seats” are noted in 
the inventory (1774) of George Willocks Leslie of 
Jamaica, L. I., and “six green damask chairs”’ in the 
modest inventory (1785) of Benjamin Moore, a sail- 
maker of this city. 

Yellow was the color of the original damask cur- 
tains in this room, as well as of those with which 
Washington furnished his presidential homes in New 
York and Philadelphia. 

The splendor of the furnishings of a Colonial home 
in Boston was thus noted in his diary by John Adams, 
our first vice-president and second president, under 


date of January 16, 1766: 


“Djined at Mr. Nick Boylston’s with the two Mr. Boylstons, 
Mr. Wm. Smith, Mr. Hallowell and their ladies—an elegant din- 
ner indeed! Went over the house to view the furniture, which 
alone cost a thousand pounds sterling. A seat it is for a noble- 
man, a prince. The Turkey carpets, the painted hangings, the 
marble tables, the rich beds with their crimson damask curtains 
and counterpanes, the beautiful chimney clock, the spacious 
garden, are the most magnificent of any thing I have ever seen.” 


Damask was also used for wall coverings along 
with other fabrics. Upholsterers’ advertisements 
give authority for the use of textiles on the walls. 

The painted Chinese wall-paper in this room is 
similar to a set imported for Samual Powel’s cousin, 
Robert Morris, about 1770. It consisted of forty 
strips, each four feet wide and twelve feet high, and 


192 TH E “ACMiEe RT CAN Warne 


showed a continuous panorama of Chinese industries 
such as rice and tea raising and pottery making. Such 
paper was painted in China for the English market. 
Upon our paper appear mountains, pagodas, and 
mandarins, painted in water color. This type of paper 
was undoubtedly used in making the “Chinese” 
room in the house of George Mason, the Virginian, an 
intimate friend and neighbor of Washington, as well 
as on the walls of the house advertised for sale in the 
South Carolina Gazette of about April 1, 1757, by 
James Reid: “. . . The said house is new-built, 
strong and modish after the Chinese taste.” 

While our ancestors relied largely upon the Old 
World and the Orient for their wall-papers, adver- 
tisements in the Philadelphia papers just before the 
Revolution indicate that wall hangings were even 
then being manufactured here. 

The prints on the walls of this room are mezzo- 
tints of Rockingham, Pitt, Barré,! and Burke, who 
were honored and toasted in homes in hamlet and 
city throughout the country for their efforts in 
bringing about the repeal of the Stamp Act and their 
opposition to the American policy of George III. 

Our authority for hanging them here is found 1n an 
advertisement which appeared in the Pennsylvania 
Chronicle of December 12, 1768. It evidences as well 
the stock of prints kept in many a Colonial print shop. 

“Of new and useful maps, from Four Pounds cash to Three and 
Nine-pence each; curious and entertaining prints, great variety 


of drawing books, &c. on the best principles, from the best mas- 
ters; copy books and slips, in all the branches of penmanship; 


1 Barré’s characterization of the Americans as “Sons of Liberty,” 
when speaking in the House of Commons against the passage of the Stamp 
Act, suggested the name quickly adopted throughout the Colonies by 
those bodies active in defense of constitutional liberty. 


See GrOpNaD. Pil) O20 R 193 


GLAZED PICTURES in the present English taste, neatly ornamented 
with carved and gilt corners and side pieces, from Forty-two 
Shillings to Three and Sixpence a piece.—Amongst which are, 
scriptural, historical, humourous and miscellaneous designs; a 
few pair of fine PATTERNS for LEAP YEAR; elegant gardens, land- 
scapes and AMERICAN VIEWS, fit for gentlemen FARMERS3{ battles 
by sea and land; horse-racing and hunting, printed in green, very 
fine; the greatest variety of perspective views for diagonal mir- 
rors; ROYAL and ILLUSTRIOUS personages, ladies of quality and 
celebrated BEAUTIES, &c. prints very saleable and cheap for 
country chapmen; . 

“N.B. Such as want any thing extraordinary in the print way, 
are requested to send their orders soon, that they may be had in 
next spring.—They varnish maps of the world at Five Shillings, 
and all other pieces in proportion. 


t “Lovers of arts and their country.” 


The portrait of Pitt in this room was scraped by 
Charles Willson Peale of Maryland while in London. 

“The Principal ricure is that of Mr. pirr ina 
Consular Habit, speaking in Defence of the Claims of 
the AMERICAN colonies, on the Principles of the 
BRITISH Constitution. With MAGNA CHARTA In one 
Hand, he points with the other, to the Statue of 
British Liderty, trampling under Foot the Petition of 
the CONGRESS AT NEW YORK. 

“An ALTAR, with a Flame is placed in the Fore- 
ground, to shew that the Cause of Liberty 1s sacred, 
and, that therefore, they who maintain it, not only 
discharge their Duty to their King and themselves, 
but to Gop. It is decorated with the Heads of stDNEY 
and HAMPDEN, who with undaunted Courage, spoke, 
wrote, and died in Defence of the true Principles of 
Liberty, and of those Rights and Blessings which 
GREAT-BRITAIN NOW enjoys. > 

“Patriot Pitt”? and the ‘Guardian of America, 


194 THOR AeMVE Rel Coat Ne eye alee 


Pitt”? were household words. No more appealing 
gifts could be made than those noted in the New 
York Journal of July 3, 1766. “A great number of 
rings, set with the Head of Mr. Pitt are intended to 
be sent as presents to some of the principal merchants 
in America, by their correspondents in this city.” 

Charles Oliver Bruff, goldsmith and jeweler, adver- 
tised in the New York Gazette of November 7, 1774, 
that he had at the Sign of the Tankard, Tea-Pot, and 
Ear-ring . “engaged a stone seal engraver 
from London who engraves arms. . . heads and 
fancies. . . with the heads of Lord Chatham, 
Shakespeare, Milton, Pope. . . with all emblems 
of liberty.” 

We find authority for the hanging of the very beau- 
tiful cut-glass lustre in this room from an account 
written by Major André for the Gentlemen’s Maga- 
zine of London of that historic ball, the Mischianza, 
given by the British officers (1778) in Philadelphia in 
honor of Sir William Howe. The immense ballroom 
was described by André as being lighted by twelve 
hanging glass lustres, each holding twenty sperma- 
ceti candles. Those of necessity were borrowed from 
houses in the neighborhood. 

Lustres were in general use by the middle of the 
century. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in a letter 
to the Countess Mar (1716) noted, ““The whole is 
made gay by pictures. . . and in almost every 
room large lustres of Rock chrystal.”’ 

They were hung lower than the chandeliers in a 
modern room, thereby making the candle flame more 
effective, but rather dangerous to the fairer sex. One 
of Mrs. Washington’s receptions at the Osgood house 
in Cherry Street, New York, was sadly interrupted by 


Spe GO Ne Dk LO OeR 195 


the ostrich plumes in the elaborate headdress of Miss 
Mary Mclvers (later Mrs. Edward Livingston) tak- 
ing fire from contact with a lighted hanging lustre. 

In creating in this room a patriotic atmosphere 
such as existed in many an American home in those 
all-important days which just preceded the American 
Revolution, certain Chelsea-Derby statuettes have 
been used. These typify the general interest in the 
troubled politics of the time. 

Among the “burnt images and figures for mantle- 
pieces” which we know were imported into America 
at this time, it seems entirely probable that there 
should have been Chelsea-Derby statuettes of Wil- 
liam Pitt, whose toast was drunk at every banquet, 
along with those of John Wilkes, who was worshiped 
in America for his stand in behalf of constitutional 
government in England and showered with gifts from 
our assemblies and patriotic individuals.’ A Chelsea- 
Derby statuette? which must have had a peculiar 
interest to Philadelphians is that of Mrs. Catharine 
Macaulay, the historian, to whose authorship the 
Philadelphia papers were ascribing the Letters of 
Junius, and whose writings were especially exempted 
from the operation of the Non-Importation Act of 
1767. In this statuette Mrs. Macaulay is depicted 
leaning on the four volumes of her History of Eng- 
land, which rest on the top of a pedestal, on the front 
of which is inscribed this quotation from her pen, 
‘Government a Power Delegated for the Happiness 
of Mankind conducted by Wisdom, Justice and 
Mercy.” On the base appear the words, “American 


1 Not the least interesting of these was a portrait painted on order by 
Copley of a three-year-old boy, whose enthusiastic parents had given 
him the name of Wilkes Barber. 

2 Probably modeled in 1777. 


196 THE AMERICAN WING 


Congress.’ Another interesting note on this statuette 
is the fact that there is inscribed upon the side of the 
pedestal, along with the names of England’s great 
defenders of constitutional liberty, Sidney, Milton, 
Hampton, Locke, and others, that of our own John 
Dickinson, who had been characterized in the House 
of Commons by Isaac Barré as “‘a man who was not 
only an ornament to his country, but an honor to 
human natures - 

The most interesting of all of these Chelsea porce- 
lains, however, is the emblematic group of Pitt re- 
ceiving the gratitude of America. This inevitably re- 
calls the tribute paid by the Rev. Jonathan Mayhew, 
the New England patriot, who addressed Pitt from 
the midst of a rejoicing people: “To you grateful 
America attributes that she is reinstated in her former 
Liberties. America calls you over again her father; 
live long in health, happiness and honor; be it late 
when you must cease to plead the cause of liberty 
on earth.” 

The iron fireback in this room is of New York 
origin and might well have been among those thus 
advertised in the New York Journal of Sept. 6, 1769: 
“Plain and figured chimney backs as made by the 
New York Air furnace.” Cast in relief is the date, 

1767, and the figure of an officer in kilts. 


Fs9 PMosnst Pog Pees Moc Most Meg Fee to Mes M9 Fee Mog NS 9 te Ma oS a, $% 9.09 
SESE SE OE OE OO OO 
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EOF BE OBE ONE Oe Be OE OE 
TAY, Tay, ay, 7 VY, ay, ay, ay, ay, c/ ay, 
PO POLO MOT Mu ge Ory gong obey re, goWMng Ue, go"OP ag 4 PO TON Oa Ta OLIN 


Bainst Floor 


@, 2 ©.  ¢, 2 @, 2 @ > @, 2° ¢, 0 ¢. 0 @, > o ¢ ¢, 2° 9 @, > @, 
22 2.09 %.O9 %0,° pg pe OF %.O9 9.09 OF Se Dat D3 % 9,9 OF OFS 


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ee ee ce ee ee ce KS As ee oe BS @2@ee e 3% 3" 3 Ae 
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LTO TOTO TOTO T OT ROT OT OT Ona Sa That Sha Sa Te 


tee tial) PERIOD: of early American 
art. The Early Republic to 1825 


weed eee" HE rococo style which had spread over 
Re 9,9 9,9 9,2" 


we 3% Europe and extended to America, re- 


oe 


v, 
% a? t) 
Ly ® 
OO) 


> 
Sd 
= 


He Sh 6 
oT ES sulting in the sophisticated elaboration 
BESS, of our second chief period, reached 1n 
Rerxores Europe an extreme complexity. In 
England, in order to retain popular interest, the 
cabinet-makers resorted to strange and exotic forms, 
fantastic and sometimes absurd, which practically 
marked the end of the usefulness of this style of de- 
sign in that particular age. The natural reaction 
from this over-elaboration in decorative art was 
toward an extreme simplicity. 

There had been preparing for some years, as it hap- 
pened, just the necessary material to foster and sup- 
port this reaction. The excavations begun at Hercu- 
laneum in 1738 and at Pompeii in 1748 and carried on 
for several years by a group of architects and archae- 
ologists were bringing to light a great deal of late 
Roman material, different in character from much 
with which the Renaissance artists had been familiar. 
There grew up a school of careful archaeologists who 
recorded with considerable accuracy the results of 
these discoveries. 

A young Scotch architect, Robert Adam, touring 


197 


¢, 2 @, 

A * *.09 % 
eo 
3 

¢, 

oF %, 
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198 THE AMERICAN WING 


Italy to complete his professional education, came in 
contact with this group, enthusiastic over the recent 
discoveries. Adam became imbued with an equal en- 
thusiasm and absorbed a great deal of the essential 
feeling of this late Roman classic work. His activity 
extended also to archaeological investigation and his 
reconstruction of the palace of Diocletian at Spalatro 
was published in 1764, shortly after his return to 
England. 

Up to this time the rococo influence had reigned 
undisputed and the eclectic taste of the time had 
absorbed every available suggestion. Here was an- 
other quite fresh and new contribution and the public 
grasped at it eagerly. But it was soon found that the 
principles behind the new school were not susceptible 
of absorption by the rococo designers and the classic 
forms preserved their individuality completely, par- 
ticularly under Robert Adam and his brothers. 

Adam, though an architect, extended his influence 
into every department of the decoration and furnish- 
ing of buildings and, preserving a complete consis- 
tency of attitude, very rapidly established a new 
style of purely classic derivation. He was primarily 
an adapter, basing his design upon the less monumen- 
tal work which he had studied in the newly excavated 
towns. | 

His popularity as an architect was phenomenal 
after his return to England. In 1761 he was appointed 
Royal Architect and by that time was building a 
considerable number of great houses for the nobility 
and designing not only the interior architecture of the 
rooms but much of the furniture, metalwork, and 
textiles which went into them. Naturally enough, 
with the tremendous popular support which came to 


fel Res TFA O,0eR 199 


him, other architects and designers followed in his 
wake. There was a complete revolution in taste 
accomplished in a remarkably short space of time, 
practically within ten years. 

It is with the results of this revolution that we have 
to deal in our Third Period of artistic development 
in America. 

Our Second Period began with a classical revival in 
much the same manner. Yet the earlier revival was 
based on an incomplete knowledge of a different type 
of classical remains which, by the time that its de- 
veloped forms had reached England, had already 
gone beyond its original classic forms into the rococo, 
a far cry from its beginnings. This second classical 
revival of the late eighteenth century began with a 
more exact knowledge and a knowledge of less monu- 
mental and more adaptable types of late Roman 
originals. It included an interest in the decoration of 
small buildings and for this reason possessed a smaller 
scale which gave it greater adaptability. 

The initial effect upon planning was a carefully 
studied disposition and relation of spaces. Large and 
small rooms were related one to the other for the dra- 
matic effect of contrasting size. Shapes of rooms were 
varied to create interest and surprise. Round, oval, 
and octagonal apartments were interspersed with 
rectangular ones—to increase the variety of effect. 
Semicircular exedras at the ends of long galleries 
gave a focus for a vista. Thus an infinitely increased 
vocabulary of architectural forms arose in England. 
The Italians in their intensive development in the 
Renaissance had early achieved a part of this vocab- 
ulary, but it had not exerted an effect in England un- 
til this time. 


200 T HE SA°MtECR I CAINS Vy aie 


The height of the popularity in England of the 
style introduced by Adam coincided with that period 
of strained relations before, during, and after the 
Revolutionary War which separated the Colonies from 
the mother country. It was not until some years 
after peace was established that the full effect of the 
changed taste began to appear in the United States, 
yet when once the change began it spread with 
rapidity. Aside from the natural impulse to follow in 
the prevailing mode, a ready support of the new style 
came from its advertised relation to Roman republi- 
can life. The founders of the Republic had looked to 
Rome for help and inspiration in creating the struc- 
ture of the government and laws of the new United 
States. For this reason anything associated with the 
republic on the Tiber met with hearty encourage- 
ment. 

The first effects were seen in the architecture.' The 
planning showed greater study. The older type of 
house built in the Colonies had been in general of 
simple and symmetrical form, as has been briefly 
stated. This afforded an easy basis from which to 
start. More spacious and higher rooms became gen- 
eral, their variety in shape following that of the 
English work; oval, round, octagonal, and exedral 
plans were developed in much of the building of the 
Early Republic. 

On the exterior of the houses the most striking 
change was the marked delicacy of scale. Classic 
detail and arrangement prevailed but the attenua- 
tion of proportion and the refinement of parts gave it 


1 For a fuller treatment of the architecture of this period see Fiske 
Kimball, Domestic Architecture of the American Colonies and the Early 
Republic. 





FIG. 79. MAHOGANY MIXING-TABLE AND SIDEBOARD, INLAID 
SHOWING SHERATON INFLUENCE 


202 TH E ~ACM-E RT CuACN We ieee 


a new effectiveness; columns and pilasters were elon- 
gated, and the old Vitruvian relation of column height 
to depth of entablature was very much lightened. As 
in the baroque method, the classical forms were used 
for purely decorative effect but they were used with 
comparative conventionality. Tall, pillared porti- 
coes appeared on fronts of buildings, combining into 
the height of one classic order the two stories of the 
facade. 

The delicate painted and stucco decoration of Pom- 
peli gave a cue for a light and charming use of orna- 
ment. New details of classic inspiration appeared. 
Swags and paterae, leaf mouldings of various sorts, 
flutings and reedings, ribbons and flowers, rinceaux 
and the Greek key were some of the usual decorative 
patterns both on interiors and exteriors. 

Much of the delicate ornament was made of a hard 
composition and was attached to the wood, a method 
perfected in England under the direction of the 
Adam brothers and patented by them. This was an 
inexpensive substitute for carving and permitted very 
elaborate repeating designs. 

The prevalence of a definite and consistent style in 
the architecture of the period was fostered by the 
widespread circulation of architectural books of all 
sorts. The architect of the time was generally a mas- 
ter-builder whose work combined practical knowledge 
with the suggestions derived from these architectural 
books. Cultivated amateurs whose libraries were at 
all extensive possessed a surprising alhay of both 
European and American publications. * 

A number of books were published in the United 


1 See Fiske Kimball, Thomas Jefferson, Architect, for a list of books 
in Jefferson’s library. 


Pelee sa dree ls LeOsOak 203 


States which, added to those well known abroad and 
current in America, gave a ready supply of architec- 
tural forms and detail. Among these American pub- 





FIG. 80. MAHOGANY SECRETARY, IN- 
LAID, AND VENEERED, SHOWING SHER- 
ATON INFLUENCE 


lications were the works of William and James Pain, 
four of whose books were published before 1804. 
Asher Benjamin of Massachusetts published two 
books, in 1796 and 1806 respectively, each of which 


204 TO EB SAM IELREI. GAIN Ge Walaa 


was reissued at a later date. Both of these groups 
presented a version of the Adam work, well adjusted 
to execution in wood and to use in the less pretentious 
work which was done in America. 

In common with the architecture, the furniture, 
textiles, and metalwork took on a greater refinement. 
Simple classic forms predominated, following more or 
less structural lines. The straight line formed the 
basis, and with it were combined uncomplicated 
curves which seldom appeared in the structural ele- 
ments. Semicircles, ellipses, and such geometrical 
figures were the rule, developing into a serpentine but 
seldom going further in this direction. 

The change in furniture design is very sharply 
marked. It includes not only the addition of a num- 
ber of new pieces to serve the social usage of the time, 
but exhibits in its design the characteristic simplicity 
of outline and the careful structural quality which 
predominated in all the utilitarian arts. 

The vertical support is no longer the curved cabri- 
ole. This gives place to the straight tapering leg. 
The classic order becomes the basis for much of the 
proportion and arrangement of parts, the skirting of 
chairs and tables being studied in relation to the 
height of the leg, as the entablature of the classic 
order bears a definite relation to the column height. 
The geometrical curve is confined chiefly to horizon- 
tal usage in table-tops, chests of drawers, chair- 
seats, and sideboards. 

The sideboard is an example of a new piece whose 
appearance belongs to this period. The Chippendale 
side-table was combined, by Adam, with flanking 
pedestals into a group of three pieces which formed a 
sideboard arrangement. The succeeding cabinet- 





FIG. 81. MAHOGANY CHEST-ON-CHEST SHOWING 

IN ITS LOWER PORTION A SURVIVAL OF CHIPPEN- 

DALE FORM COMBINED WITH THE CLASSIC IN- 

FLUENCE OF THE LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 

THE FIGURES ARE ATTRIBUTED TO SAMUEL 
MCINTIRE OF SALEM 


206 Tie AME Rol CAN (Well Net 


makers in the Adam school developed this design and 
combined these three pieces into one, with the result- 
ing sideboard as a solution (fig. 79). 

In England had developed a group of experienced 
furniture designers and cabinet-makers who, begin- 
ning at the time when Chippendale was in the 
ascendancy, had found a common basis for stylistic 
expression in the portfolios and books of design plates 





FIG. 82. SOFA OF MAHOGANY, ROSEWOOD, AND SATIN- 
WOOD, SHOWING SHERATON INFLUENCE 


which one or another would issue for sale. These de- 
sign books were many and in them can be traced the 
preferences of certain men for certain treatments of 
form and decoration. The names of some of the 
men who published books of furniture design have 
become indissolubly associated with particular ex- 
pressions. Many cabinet-makers executed the de- 
signs of Robert Adam, among them Chippendale 
himself. Hence a knowledge of the new style became 
general. Basing their design upon such knowledge, 
certain practical cabinet-makers issued books, partly 
to show their clientele the work which might be 
ordered. Among these, Hepplewhite’s Guide, first 


PeleRaSad ooh 1s.0,02R J07 


published in 1788, is important since Hepplewhite 
and Co. was a flourishing firm of London cabinet- 
makers. In this volume may be seen numbers of de- 
signs, some distinctive and personal, others adapta- 
tions of the usual popular pieces such as were being 
made by many firms. Thomas Sheraton, whose pub- 





FIG. 832. MAHOGANY ARMCHAIR AND UPHOLSTERED 
ARMCHAIR. SHERATON STYLE 


lications, issued from 1791 to 1804, were the basis of a 
preat deal of the furniture design in the United 
States, continued the same tradition, carrying it 
further along toward its final downfall. 

In the furniture made in this country in the last 
decade of the eighteenth century and the first of the 
nineteenth, we have a blending of the treatments 
which are associated with Hepplewhite and Sheraton. 
The former employed such details as the square 
tapered or the round fluted leg, the spade foot, the 


208 T H-E SAMIR LR CANS OW Lae 


shield-shaped chair-back, some carved decoration, 
and little else which can be differentiated sharply 
from Sheraton usage. Sheraton preferred the round 
leg, sometimes reeded, the square chair-back, inlay 
rather than carving on case furniture, veneered pan- 
els, and much of the decorative method common to 
all the contemporaneous work. It is difficult, often 
impossible, to analyze American pieces of the period 
for their exact origin of motif, since the work is the 
consummation of the efforts of many workers of the 
last quarter of the eighteenth century, of whom 
Hepplewhite and Sheraton are only two. 

Of this furniture the pieces shown on the first floor 
of the wing form a fairly representative group. The 
chairs are of both Hepplewhite and Sheraton models 
and range from simple to highly decorated carved and 
openwork designs. There are wooden armchairs of 
Sheraton inspiration and upholstered chairs with no 
wood showing except in the legs (fig. 83). Tables of 
many sorts, for dining, cards, and tea, stands for 
candles or for sewing materials, sideboards and buf- 
fets are decorated with inlay, veneers, and bandings. 
Desks both with and without bookcase tops are car- 
ried out in conformity with the prevailing style. 
There are comfortable sofas and settees with deli- 
cately treated frames, foot-stools, fire-screens, chests 
of drawers, high-post bedsteads, and every conceiv- 
able article which complete house furnishing and 
decoration could have required then or now. 

The looking-glasses are of mahogany, brightened 
by gilded carving, or of wood and composition com- 
pletely gilded. In some, the upper pane of glass 1s 
decorated by designs of paint and gold-leaf (figs. 
go and g2). 


Reteier Sei) bel AO tOnt 209 


There was much demand for furniture of light 
woods such as curly maple and satinwood. A good 
deal of the mahogany was finished in a light tone, par- 
ticularly where it was inlaid with lighter woods (figs. 
8o and 88). On case furniture and on tables, veneer- 
ing and inlay were more usual than carving. On 





FIG. 84. MAHOGANY SIDECHAIR AND ARM-CHAIR SHOWING 
HEPPLEWHITE INFLUENCE 


chairs, carved decoration persisted, combined with 
moulding, delicate turning, and reeding. 

Painted decoration also had a vogue. Flowers, 
groups of musical instruments, bows and arrows, or 
medallions were painted in color or done in gold, fol- 
lowing the French fashion. 

Toward the end of the period a change becomes ap- 
parent with the beginning of the influence of the 
French Empire. Here a new wave of classic derivation 


PE, T HE AMES RSL CVAGN Wena G 


overwhelms design, which returns to a closer asso- 
ciation with archaeological meticulousness. Mea- 
sured drawings of Greek temples were carefully fol- 
lowed for architectural use, and the struggles of 
Greece for independence in the early nineteenth cen- 
tury gave Grecian forms a particular vogue. In fur- 
niture an increased heaviness and solidity begin to 
appear, and with this phase of furniture design the 
great age of cabinet-makers comes to an end. The 
last of Sheraton’s publications contains much of this 
Neo-Greek influence. 

The work of this last period, as shown 1n the wing, 
is closely associated with the first years of the United 
States, years when the American people were making 
rapid strides toward financial recovery from the past 
war and genuine prosperity for the future. At that 
time the mercantile marine was carrying the Amert- 
can flag to every quarter of the globe, enriching its 
owners and making possible here that luxury of liv- 
ing which had been interrupted by the struggle for 
independence. The fashions of the Old World con- 
tinued to be the fashions in the new. As our nation 
commenced to have a history and a background of its 
own, not only Europe but even the Orient catered to 
this individuality in certain of the textiles and pot- 
tery sent to our markets, thereby giving to many an 
American home an atmosphere different from that of 
the residences in the Old World. 

Houses were being built and furnished frequently 
with considerable elegance, as fortunes were made in 
the growing prosperity of the country. In The Jour- 
nal of an Excursion to the United States of America 
in the Summer of 1794, Henry Wansey noted among 
his observations: 


Peles by FL OsOrk 2 lel 


“T dined this day with Mr. Bingham [in Philadelphia], to whom 
I had a letter of introduction. I found a magnificent house and 
gardens in the best English style, with elegant and even superb 
furniture. The chairs of the drawing room were from Seddon’s in 
London, of the newest taste; the back in the form of a lyre, with 
festoons of crimson and yellow silk. The curtains of the room a 
festoon of the same. The carpet one of Moore’s most expensive 





FIG. 85. MAHOGANY SIDE-CHAIRS SHOWING 
SHERATON INFLUENCE 


patterns. The room was papered in the French taste, after the 
style of the Vatican at Rome.” 


Although communication with Europe was con- 
stant and importation of ideas and materials reached 
large proportions, numbers of excellent cabinet-mak- 
ers and upholsterers plied their trades in all cities, 
while manufacturers of many kinds were patronized 
by those citizens who wished to encourage home in- 
dustry. In “The Report of the Secretary of the 
Treasury of the United States on the subject of Man- 


PES TOH EE CACM2E RIL C AEN {Walaa 


ufactures Presented to the House of Representatives 
Dec. 5, 1791,” Alexander Hamilton, first Secretary 
of the Treasury and father of the policy of protection, 
gave as his opinion that “cabinet-wares are generally 
made little, if at all inferior to those of Europe. Their 
extent is such as to have admitted of considerable ex- 
portation. An exemption from duty of the several 





FIG. 86. ARMCHAIRS FROM THE WORKSHOP OF DUNCAN 
PHYFE, NEW YORK, EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY 


kinds of wood ' ordinarily used in these manufactures 
seems to be all that is requisite by way of encourage- 
ment. It is recommended by the consideration of a 
similar policy being pursued in other countries and 
by the expediency of giving equal advantages to our 
own workmen in wood.” 


1 For fine cabinet-work many woods were imported. In The Journey- 
men Cabinet and Chair Makers’ New-York Book of Prices we find extra 
prices are charged for work (except in banding) in which were used: 
“Sattin or Manillia wood . . . Sasico or Havannah . . . King, 
tulip, rose, purple, snake, zebra, Alexandria, Panella, yew, maple, &c.”’ 


Peergoue ble OsO7R 213 


One type of American Sheraton and Hepplewhite 
consists of pieces which have inlaid in them represen- 
tations of the American eagle, designs readily obtain- 
able, appearing as they did upon earliest United 
States copper and silver coinage. These were sub- 
stituted by some of our most skilful cabinet-makers 





FIG. 87. DROP-LEAF TABLE OF MAHOGANY 
FROM THE WORKSHOP OF DUNCAN PHYFE 
NEW YORK, EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY 


for the conventional urn and flower designs inlaid in 
many an English and American piece of furniture. 
This truly American bird first came into vogue as a 
motif of decoration at the time of the inauguration 
of our first president. The facades of the remodeled 
City Hall of New York and the Government House, 
erected for the use of the new government on the site 
of the present Custom House on Bowling Green, 
showed it in relief in all its glory. When Washington, 


21 TASE Cee MOR aK TC aaNet 


shortly after his inauguration, made his triumphal 
tour through the newly united states, this emblem 
was a feature of transparencies ' which illuminated 
many a public building and private home in welcome 
to the recently elected president. 





FIG. 88. DESK OF MAHOGANY AND SATIN- 
WOOD, WITH THE AMERICAN EAGLE INLAID 


Painted upon the fans, hair-ribbons, and sashes of 
the fair ones and engraved upon the coat buttons of 
the men, it added many a note of patriotism to the 
balls and receptions given in the beloved General’s 
honor. “Spread eagle” taverns sprang into existence 
and with their gayly painted swinging signboards 
made their appeal to the travelers. 


1An easy form of decoration within the reach of every one, being 
made by tracing the design upon whitewashed or starched window panes 
behind which were placed lighted candles. 


lane sale el Lt OsOek Bs 


The use in furniture of this emblem of nationalism 


and of Washington was not 
confined to any one cabinet- 
maker, or any group, as 
“spread eagle” furniture was 
made apparently in Albany, 
Boston, New York, Philadel- 
phia, Baltimore, and their 
vicinities. The spread eagle 
was inlaid in mirror frames, 
breakfast tables, tambour and 
slant-top desks, corner cabi- 
nets, tip tables, Pembroke ta- 
bles, card-tables, both  rec- 
tangular and semicircular, tall 
clocks, and knife boxes. In- 
variably these pieces were of a 
high order of workmanship. 
We have no definite date for 
the first appearance of this 
peculiarly American furniture. 
Probably the earlier pieces are 
those which display the eagle 
without the stars. As state 
after state came in, we find fif- 
feo 792), sixteen. (1796), 
and eighteen (1806) stars in 
the inlay. Sixteen apparently 
predominates, which probably 
dates most of them at 1798, a 
year of great excitement here 
due to the diplomatic difficul- 





FIG. 8g. TALL CLOCK OF 
CURLY MAPLE, WITH THE 
AMERICAN EAGLE INLAID 


ties with France, which ended with the breaking 
out of a war of short duration with our former friend 


216 THE AMERICAN WIMNG 


and ally, caused by the Directory’s insults to our 
government, one of which occasioned that memora- 
ble retort from our minister to France, Charles Cotes- 
worth Pinckney: “Millions for defense, not a cent 
for tribute.” 

It is difficult at this late day to picture the tense 
atmosphere which pervaded the country at this time, 
as well as the place the American eagle held in the 
emotions of our people, many evidences of which are 
to be found in the news-sheets of the day. The Alex- 
andria Gazette of May 5, 1798, gives a graphic 
account of an all-day review of the First Troop of the 
Baltimore Light Dragoons and the banquet which 
followed, with its sixteen toasts—that of “President 
Adams” followed by three cheers; the “American 
Envoys in Paris,” five cheers; ““The American Eagle 
—May it never lose its weight in the scale of nations, 
nor drop from its talons the motto of Liberty or 
Death,” six cheers; while ‘‘The fine and independent 
volunteers of the state of Baltimore—in citizenship 
orderly, in military discipline veterans, in courage 
bold and undaunted,” received only half the number 
bestowed upon the American bird. 

It is more than probable that the pieces bearing 
eighteen stars were created to take advantage of the 
intense nationalistic feeling aroused by the diplomatic 
troubles with Great Britain which caused the Em- 
bargo, and later on the War of 1812. 

The lure of the spread eagle was not confined to our 
cabinet-makers. The brass founders worked it into. 
the designs of openwork fenders and engraved it 
upon andirons. 

The Colonial makers of mirrors—those highly utili- 
tarian and in many cases delightfully ornamental 


TANWd SSV1D GALNIVd 
LNaduas V ANV ‘GadTID GNV GaAUVO 
ONIHSONUO ATOVA NV AG YALSVId ANV dOoOM AO 


TANVd SSV1T9 
GaLNivd GNV ANVAd 


dad1ld GNV GgAUVO HLIM 
SSVID-DNINOOT ‘6 ‘Old GALNAOWUAS AIOGNVUID ‘16 ‘Old SSVID-ONINOOT ‘OO ‘Old 











218 THE AM ER CAN © WwW lone 


pieces of furniture—followed largely the fashions of 
the Old World. In the days of the Early Republic, 
however, some of the craftsmen put their own indi- 
viduality into the decorations, though they departed 
but little in form from the accepted types of the 
period. That same atmosphere of pride in country 
which had brought about the use of the spread eagle 
in the embellishment of some of the furniture found 
an easy vent in the glass paintings which decorated 
the upper panels of so many mirrors of the late 


eee 


YY) gee — 
— a 8 OG py 
Youre Ra OXX Des 


; mom ‘ee eeee of 
SOOT gng oe eee ne, ees OL 
EEN was Vay ee ei aos 
“3 me ie 





FIG. 93. PIERCED FENDER WITH THE AMERICAN 
EAGLE IN THE DESIGN 


eighteenth and early nineteenth century. The orna- 
mentation of these makes them literally “mirrors of 
history.” Among the painted glass panels of the 
mirrors exhibited is one bearing a portrait of Wash- 
ington surrounded by an elaborate military trophy 
in gold.|. Surmounting a convex mirror, also exhib- 
ited, is an American eagle crushing in its beak a 
snake, symbolic of the enemies of the republic (fig. 


gl). 


1No more pleasing pen picture of the love for Washington which 
existed at this period is given than that of the exquisite émigrée, the 
Marquise de La Tour du Pin, wife of the minister to Brussels under 
Louis XVI, in an account of her journey to Albany from Boston in 
1794, as follows: 

“The frame house at which we stopped reflected an advanced degree 
of civilization in that it was provided with glazed windows; but it is the 
incomparable beauty of the family occupying it that is ineftaceably 


Pel ehast toe L Ofek 219 


Other mirrors show on their panels weeping willows 
with goddesses of Liberty leaning on funeral urns 
inscribed with the names of Washington and Ham- 
ilton—emblematic of the grief of our people over 





FIG. 94. URN-SHAPED SILVER WITH THE MARK 
OF PAUL REVERE (1735-1818) 


stamped upon my memory. First, the household: the man and his wife 
of forty or forty-five years, models of imposing elegance, figures endued 
with that exquisite beauty found only in works of the great masters. 
Around the two were grouped a family of eight or ten children, the young 
girls blossoming into womanhood, recalling the beautiful virgins of 
Raphael, while the little children, with the figures of angels, Rubens him- 
self would not have disowned. In the same house lived the venerable 
grandfather, his hair silvered by age, but free from infirmity. 

“At the close of the meal, taken in common, he rose, and baring his 
head, solemnly pronounced these words: “We are about to drink to the 
health of our well-loved President.’ One could not at that time find a 
cabin, no matter how secluded, where this expression of love for the 
great Washington did not terminate each repast. To this was sometimes 
added the health of the marquis, M. de La Fayette, a name cherished in 
the United States.” 


220 TST ee ACM ERG CANE Wale 


the death of these two statesmen. A particularly 
interesting one bears the word “Liberty” surmount- 
ing seventeen stars, encircling a well-painted alle- 
gorical scene of Minerva protecting commerce, un- 
doubtedly inspired by the rejoicings over the success 
of our small fleet (1804), under the command of 
Preble, Bainbridge, and Decatur, which freed our 
merchantmen from the depredations of the Tripoli 
corsairs. wo mirrors (from the Bolles Collection) of 
mahogany veneer on pine, decorated with gilded de- 
tail, are hung on either side of the exterior door. A 
third, which hangs in the main gallery, pictures a 
frigate and a brig in the lower bay, both of which fly 
the flag of our country. 

Our clockmakers also availed themselves of the 
national enthusiasm by using historical scenes and 
patriotic emblems as decoration. Three of these truly 
American clocks are shown upon the first floor of the 
wing. 

America was still dependent upon Europe for most 
of the fine textiles used for upholstery and clothing, 
of which a large and varied assortment were is 
ported. For chair upholstery, silk fabrics such as 
damasks, brocades, satins, velvets, and taffetas were 
much used, varied by haircloth in black and colors, 
leathers, and linens. A large selection of copperplate 
printed linens and cottons was imported, chiefly from 
France. Of these, the famous toiles de Jouy were 
much used for curtains, bed-furniture, and uphol- 
stery. These copperplate designs, many of distinctly 
Louis XVI type and later of the Directory and 
Empire, were frequently given a patriotic touch by 
the introduction of symbolic emblems, flags, or por- 
traits of American heroes. Two varieties of these 


Pelvkose lt) FLO OrR ook 


patriotic copper-printed fabrics may be seen in the 
bedroom from Haverhill, Massachusetts. For cur- 
tains not only were the silk and printed fabrics em- 
ployed, but combined with them or used alone were 
fine mull or lawn draperies, embroidered and hand- 
wrought with drawnwork and hemstitching. 
Wall-papers, pictorial and purely decorative, are 
the characteristic wall hangings of the time. Rooms, 





FIG. 95. PITCHER OF AMERI- FIG. 96. BOWL. OF PENN- 


CANS GUASS Sth REE-MOULD — SYLVANIA GERMAN POT- 
TYPE, EARLY NINETEENTH TERY, EARLY NINE- 
CENTURY TEENTH CENTURY 


no longer paneled above the height of the chair-rail, 
were generally hung with gay papers, when they were 
not covered with fabric. These papers, made chiefly 
in France and England, were imported into the 
United States, although to some extent wall-paper 
was manufactured in America. On this floor may 
be seen fine old examples of two types of scenic 
paper—one in varied colors, the other in monochrome 
—as well as a paper of purely decorative and formal 
design which has hung in a home in New Jersey for 
one hundred and thirty years. 


ee THE.  SASMoRe RI CAN 2 Wels 


In the Report to Congress on Manufactures in 
1791, referred to above, made by Alexander Hamil- 
ton, it is noted with reference to the paper industry 
that “that of paper hangings is a branch in which 
respectable progress has been made.” The variety 
of papers sold is evidenced by the advertisement of 
Colton and Stewart in the Alexandria Gazette of 
January 10, 1798: ‘‘60 different Patterns of Plain and 
Printed Paper hangings just received for sale.” 

The metalwork partakes of the classic spirit as 
translated by Adam and his associates and followers. 
Brasses for fireplace use—andirons, fenders, and 
fire-tools—are wrought with the greatest delicacy. 
Some of the openwork fenders are lace-like in their 
fineness, and many of the finer andirons and tools 
are engraved (fig. 93). 

Silver 1 and Sheffield plate—the latter largely re- 
placing pewter in the finer houses—echo the classic 
forms of the current vogue. The urn shape predom- 
inates, engraving is used much more than repousse 
decoration, and the modeled decoration when it does 
occur is very low in relief and subtly fashioned (fg. 
94). Forms which we have mentioned as character- 
istic in the architecture and furniture—oval, octag- 
onal, serpentine—are repeated in the silver designs. 
The urn shape is employed for teapots, sugar bowls, 
creamers, and many of the utensils of table service, 
this urn marking in its profile a departure from the 
inverted pear shape which was frequently utilized 
in the middle of the eighteenth century. The post- 
Revolutionary work bearing the mark of Paul 


1¥For a full treatment of the silver of this period see C. Louise Avery, 
American Silver of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries in the 
Clearwater Collection. 


Retest he Pel Os08R DO 


Revere, Jr., shown in the gallery on this floor, exem- 
plifies this change in form as related to plate. 

There was much glass used at this period, some of 
it being imported, a great deal being made on this 
side of the Atlantic. The imported glassware included 
the fine cut glass which is such an important element 
in the history of English handicraft. Not only was 
glass for table service brought over in quantity but 





FIG. 97. COLORED DRAWING OF THE SHOP AND 
WAREHOUSE OF DUNCAN PHYFE, THE 
NEW YORK CABINET-MAKER 


also many of the fine cut-glass lustres, which were 
widely used in England. Several examples of these 
beautiful chandeliers are shown. 

Of American-made glass there were several types: 
plain blown glass with little or no decoration, fine cut 
glass following the English in technique of cutting, 
and moulded glass made as an inexpensive imitation 
of cut glass. The last is a typical American glass, and 
a group of it is shown in the small gallery connecting 


the American Wing with the Pierpont Morgan Wing. 


ghz ak T HE. VAoMCESRT CARN WW tae 


In groups with the furniture are shown some pieces of 
the typical cut glass of the sort generally used for 
table service. 

Beside the staircase may be seen a very interesting 
colored drawing showing the shop and warehouse in 
Fulton Street of Duncan Phyfe, the New York 
cabinet-maker. This is not only an interesting record 
of Phyfe’s place of business, but 1s as well a commen- 
tary on the contemporary architecture (fig. 97). 

From France were imported many pieces of soft 
paste porcelain, some of which were made especially 
for the American market and have national heroes or 
scenes of local subjects painted in color. A num- 
ber of urns and vases of this sort are on exhibition. 
From England were sent services of the characteristic 
table porcelains of the time, Crown-Derby, Worces- 
ter, and other less known and less highly valued 
varieties. The many Staffordshire factories for porce- 
lains and high grade potteries exported heavily to 
America, and Wedgwood ware was frequently adver- 
tised in our newspapers. 

Of all the china used in the homes of the Early 
Republic possibly none makes a greater appeal than 
that (popularly known as Lowestoft) brought home 
from Canton by our early merchant navigators in 
their trading ventures. Much of it, fortunately, still 
remains in our seaboard towns—treasured heirlooms 
of ancestral china cabinets. 

The story of this porcelain is an interesting one. 
Made in the vicinity of the imperial factory at Ching-_ 
té-chén in the province of Kiang-si, and on the left 
bank of the Ch’ang River, in its undecorated form it 
was floated down the river some fifty miles to Lake 
Poyang, across the lake, and up an estuary of the 


Pemresoie Pil.OvOIn pious 


Kan River to Nan-Ch’ang Fu, thence by water up 
this river to its sources in the Ta Yu Ling Mountains; 
across the mountains it was carried thirty miles on 
the backs of coolies and again floated down to Can- 
ton, the journey in all its various phases covering 
nearly four hundred and fifty miles. In Canton it re- 
ceived its decoration from various enamelers, some 
twenty of whom are known to have been working at 
the beginning of the century. Their work was rather 
individualistic, those who catered especially to the 
English, French, and Dutch markets employing 
styles of decoration not usually found on the wares 
which were so popular with the Yankee navi- 
gators. 

Among the varieties of this china decorated at 
_ Canton especially for the American market are those 
of the last decade of the century which bear the 
“spread eagle” in brown, in gold, or in colors. Other 
interesting examples of this ware have ships flying 
the American flag; there is also a tea set decorated 
with the arms of New York supported by almond- 
eyed goddesses of Liberty and Justice. 

Miniature painting reached its highest develop- 
ment at this period, following in general the style and 
treatment of contemporary work in England. 





fe eROOMS OF THE THIRD 
PERIOD 








Early Republican painting, interior architecture, 
and utilitarian arts are represented by the collections 
in the main gallery and the adjacent rooms on this 


226 THE GA MOE RU CoA We ioe, 


floor. Included among them are woodwork influenced 
by the fashion of Robert Adam in England, of which 
Bulfinch was the great exponent here, furniture com- 
bining the Hepplewhite, Sheraton, and Empire 
modes, and metalwork, glass, ceramics, and textiles 
of the period necessary fully to present the interior 
equipment of the finer rooms of the first few years of 
the United States. 


annem eS 


EXHIBITION “GC Alte ee 

Exemplifying the delicacy of detail and the slender 
proportions characteristic of the Third Period, the 
architectural treatment in this gallery follows that 
of the first decade of the nineteenth century. The 
cornice is an exact cast in plaster of one in the Octa- . 
gon, the brick house built in Washington for John 
Tayloe between 1798 and 1800 after plans by Dr. 
William Thornton. The acanthus leaf band of the 
cornice is a motif of classic derivation. The arched 
openings on the east, north, and west walls are origi- 
nal woodwork from a house in East Pratt Street, 
Baltimore, built about 1810. The other three door- 
ways are modern but employ motifs from a room in 
the same Baltimore house, which may be seen on this 
floor. The reeded detail upon them is unusual and 
possesses more of the cabinet-maker’s touch than 
that of the carpenter (fig. 98). The chair-rail and 
baseboard reproduce originals found in Homewood, 
that fine house in Baltimore built in 1809 for Charles 
Carroll, probably by the same architect who designed 
the Pratt Street house for Henry Craig. This room 
is a gathering together of harmonious elements 


1 See the floor plan at the end of this Handbook. 


Peles Wy.  1AOsOnR 227 


typical of work of the Early Republican period from 
Washington and Baltimore. 

In the pavement of this room the precedent of the 
period, as exemplified in the New York City Hall, is 
followed. Marbles in white, black and white, and 
gray and white in different combinations and designs 
were usual in formal entrance halls and in the rooms 
of many public buildings, patterns for which exist 
among the drawings of Thomas Jefferson. 

The furniture is of Sheraton type, showing a tran- 
sition into Directory and Empire styles. Much of it 
is of New York manufacture of the early nineteenth 
century and came from the workshop of Duncan 
Phyfe.t. This well-known cabinet-maker worked in 
the Sheraton mode, later adapting his forms to the 
popular demand for the Empire fashion. His work 
represents a distinct type of high quality, depending 
for decorative effect chiefly on carving, reeding, and 
veneers, combined with beautiful woods, carefully 
selected. 

The old fabrics which cover the furniture and 
drape the windows are of the period, and include 
silks in satin-striped, brocaded, and taffeta weaves. 
In consonance with the general refinement in taste 
and flattened modeling of detail, the colors are 
usually softened and subdued, seldom of full primary 
brilliance. Bright reds and yellows were popular 
under the Empire, but these colors, though intense, 
are seldom of primary tones. For the method of 
curtain-draping ample authority and suggestion have 
been obtained both from Ackerman’s Repository of 
Arts (1809-27), a London magazine widely distributed 


1 For a fuller treatment of this furniture, see Charles O. Cornelius, 
Furniture Masterpieces of Duncan Phyfe. 


228 THE AME RICAN Wine 


in America, and from the series of lithographs 
of famous men published in Connecticut by Brown 
and Kellogg in the second quarter of the nineteenth 
century. 

A number of looking-glasses in mahogany or in 
gilded pine reveal a delicacy in keeping with the 
furniture. Painted panes of glass in some of them 
give added enrichment. Girandoles and convex mir- 
rors were popular and were surmounted usually by 
the eagle. 

Silver, glass, and porcelains of representative 
form and decoration are arranged in conjunction 
with the furniture. Oil lamps shared with candle- 
sticks, sconces, and chandeliers the lighting of the 
rooms, and all of these methods of lighting are repre- 
sented. 

Of the examples of Sino-Lowestoft ware so closely 
identified with our country the Museum 1s showing 
here bits of a tea set formerly part of the equipment 
of Cleopatra’s Barge, a pretentious yacht (1816) 
built for and owned by Captain Benjamin Crownin- 
shield, whose history forms one of the valued tradi- 
tions of Salem, Massachusetts. | 

More interesting still is the enormous punch bowl 
given in 1812 by General Morton to the City of New 
York and inscribed, ““This bowl made by Syngchong 
in Canton—Tungmanhe Pinxt.”” On its sides 1s a 
sketch of lower New York and vessels flying the 
American flag. Inside the bowl 1s the view of New 
York from Brooklyn engraved by Samuel Seymour, 
issued 1n 1803. 

Other specimens of this product of the Orient are 
portions of the large set brought to Washington from 
Canton by Captain Samuel Shaw, who acted as secre- 


Peeve) le LAOrOar 229 


tary of the meeting at which the Order of the Cin- 
cinnati was instituted. Captain Shaw was the trad- 
ing agent for the owners of the Empress of China, 
the first vessel to sail from this country directly to 
Canton, the only open port in China. In company 
with Captain Thomas Randall, one of the military 
family of General Knox, our first Secretary of War, 
he sailed from New York on February 22, 1784, and 
returned home May 11, 1785. The pieces have 
enameled on their centers the eagle of the Cincinnati, 
a reproduction in colors of that engraved on the 
parchment certificate of the order, a copy of which 
is in the Haverhill room. The suggestion of the figures 
of fame fromwhich the eagles hang was also obtained 
from the certificate. Captain Shaw’s difficulty in 
procuring a suitable present for his old commander 
is thus noted in his journal: “There are many painters 
in Canton, but I was informed that not one of them 
possesses a genius for design. I wished to have some- 
thing emblematic of the institution of the Order of 
the Cincinnati executed upon a set of porcelain. My 
idea was to have the American Cincinnatus, under 
the conduct of Minerva, regarding Fame, who hav- 
ing received from them the emblem of the Order was 
proclaiming it to the world. For this purpose I pro- 
cured two separate engravings of the goddess, an ele- 
gant figure of a military man, and furnished the 
painter with the copy of the emblem which I had in 
my possession. He was allowed to be the most emi- 
nent of his profession, but after repeated trials was 
unable to combine the figures with the least pro- 
priety, though there was not one of them who could 
not copy with the greatest exactness. I could, there- 
fore, have my wishes gratified only in part.” 


230 THE SA MEER 1 CAN eM sia 


The cup and saucer bearing the initials of General 
Knox and brought to him by the above-mentioned 
Captain Randall, are the work of a different enameler, 
who made careful copies of the obverse and reverse 
of the golden insignia of the order with their talis- 
manic legend: OMNIA RELIQUIT SERVARE REMPUB- 
LICAM—-SOCIETAS CINCINNATORUM INSTITUTA—A.D. 
1783. Of similar description are the pieces of china 
brought home by Captain Shaw for his own use. It 
is a pleasant thought that this historic ware, part of 
the cargo of the Empress of China, has been re- 
assembled here after one hundred and forty years of 
separation. The saucer and two-handled cup bearing 
the initials of Martha Washington and the legend 
DECUS ET TUTAMEN AB ILLO are Of the Oriemmanporce 
lains exported to Europe to be decorated there, the 
enameling and lettering of the names of the fifteen 
states being decidedly Western in character. 

In the tiny alcove under the stairway is arranged 
a small group of Staffordshire plates made in the 
period of 1820-30, with views of New York in the 
early nineteenth century. On their rich dark blue 
surfaces may be seen the city from Brooklyn, old Fort 
Clinton (which now houses the Aquarium), erected on 
a ledge in 1808, and a later view of the same fort 
after it had been turned into a pleasure garden. 
There are views picturing Broadway near Trinity 
Church and the City Hotel with the pump from 
which the people in the neighborhood drew their 
drinking water. The solitary man on horseback and 
the saw-horse and load of wood on the sidewalk re- 
flect the quiet atmosphere of the Knickerbocker 
town. Other views are those of St. Paul’s Church and 


1 This group of Lowestoft is now shown in the first floor gallery. 


"0 ‘d ‘NOLONIHSVM ‘NODV.LOO IHL NI JNO 
SHTONGOUdAU JAOINUOOD AHL ‘AYOWILIVA NI ASNOH VY WOU 
aUV SONINAdO GAHOUV AHL ‘AOOTA LSU ‘AYATTVO NIVIN "96 “Old 





pisos THE AMERICAN Wilkes 


the City Hall, landmarks still standing, the old Park 
Theatre on what is now Park Row, New York Hos- 
pital, Columbia College, Scudder’s Museum on the 
northwestern corner of City Hall Park? witigrne 
buildings which housed our first public school and 
savings bank. All were important elements in the 
life of the period which has now departed. 

Here may be seen that very rare view of Federal 
Hall by Dorbell which pictures the inauguration of 
General Washington. 

The miniatures in the case in this gallery were 
painted by the miniaturists Edward G. Malbone, 
Washington Allston, Charles Fraser, Henry Inman, 
Robert Field, and Sarah Goodrich; all differ in their 
technique, and bear comparison with the best work 
of their contemporaries abroad. 

The portraits in pastel by James Sharples! are char- 
acteristic of his work, much of which still remains in 
the hands of the descendants of his sitters. His first 
portrait of Washington was painted in Philadelphia 
in 1796, shortly after his arrival from England. Many 
replicas were made of this as well as of the Hamilton 
portrait. That of Noah Webster carries great inter- 
est, associated as it is with the great American lexi- 
cographer whose “Spelling-Book”” was long used in 
every city and hamlet. 

Portraits of Judge James Gould, one of the found- 
ers of the Law School at Litchfield, Connecticut, and 
of his wife indicate an excellence of painting on glass 
hitherto not noted in this country. 

A number of prints have been selected from the 
collection left to the Museum by the late Charles 
Allen Munn, and these are hung in the passageway 


1 Now in the Charles Allen Munn room. 


Mevacor) 8 OO - OER 233 


and in the adjoining Pennsylvania room, designated 
by the Museum Trustees the Charles Allen Munn 
Room. They include large mezzotints by Valentine 
Green of Washington after Trumbull and others; one 
of Henry Laurens, second president of the Continen- 
tal Congress, who was captured by the British on his 
way to Holland and imprisoned in the Tower of Lon- 
don in 1779; others of Washington and Franklin by . 
Edward Savage of Philadelphia; and a few small 
mezzotints by Charles Willson Peale, also of Wash- 
ington and Franklin. 

The two portraits by John Trumbull are of Mr. 
and Mrs. Samuel Osgood, whose house in Cherry 
Street was made into the New York home of the first 
President. Samuel Osgood was Washington’s first 
postmaster-general. A portrait by S. F. B. Morse, 
the inventor of the telegraph, of his daughter shows 
Morse’s ability as a colorist. The portrait of Chris- 
topher Colles (1739-1816), the original projector of 
the Erie Canal, was painted in New York in the 
first quarter of the century. His strong-charactered 
face is associated with New York’s civic development 
and the introduction of the canal system into this 
state. He delivered a series of lectures in New York 
in 1773 upon the subject of inland lock navigation, 
and the next year induced the city fathers to accept 
his proposal to erect a reservoir and steam pump and 
convey water through the streets 1n pipes made from 
pitch pine logs. This project had to be abandoned 
when the War of the Revolution broke out and was 
not again undertaken until 1799. He was an intimate 
friend of Washington, Hamilton, and John Pintard, 
through whose influence in his later life he was made 
the Superintendent of the Academy of Fine Arts. 


234 THE AMERICAN “Wate 


eg eee 


ALCO VE. OFLE SEX Ba ee G AcE LER 


ee er 


This little alcove has been constructed around some 
fragments of architectural woodwork in the posses- 
sion of the Museum. The cornice is an original one 
from the Cook-Oliver house in Salem, Massachu- 
setts, built shortly after 1804 from plans by Samuel 
McIntire. The mantelpiece was taken from the 
Samuel Ruggles house in Boston, attributed to 
Charles Bulfinch. Bulfinch was the first native 
trained architect in America to practise in the manner 
of modern architects, and was the strongest protago- 
nist of the Adam style in the country. The baseboard, 
chair-rail, window trim, and sash are new but follow 
exactly old details for moulded trim. 

We have here a little interior typical of early 
nineteenth-century New England, where delicate 
mouldings and finely modeled composition ornament 
are combined in great fineness of scale. Light colors 
were the rule for the painting of woodwork, thus giv- 
ing to the modeled surfaces the full effect of light and 
shadow (fig. 99). 

The walls are hung with a printed sepia wall-paper 
of French manufacture. It presents a romantic Ital- 
ian seaport scene with houses and ruins and groups 
of people engaged in rural activities. This paper 
was manufactured by Arthur et Robert, two Eng- 
lishmen who were located on the Boulevard in 1781. 
Arthur was guillotined during the Revolution and 
Robert in 1803 carried on his trade at 27 rue de la 
Place Venddme. In 1811 he was succeeded by Guillet. 

Here have been brought together some pieces of 
early nineteenth-century painted furniture, which is 





FIG. 99. ALCOVE. THE CORNICE IS BY SAMUEL MCINTIRE 
OF SALEM; THE MANTELPIECE FROM A HOUSE 
BY CHARLES BULFINCH 


236 THE AMERICAN WING 


rarely found in its original state. This 1s mostly after 
late Sheraton designs. 

The painted Sheraton chairs are of the type long 
known in America as the “Fancy Chair,” which 
apparently became fashionable here a few years after 
‘t was in London. Its advent into New York was 
announced (1797) by William Challen,) baney 
Chair-maker from London,” who “manufactures all 
sorts of dyed, Jappanned, wangee and bamboo chairs, 
settees, etc., and every article in the fancy chair line 
executed in the neatest manner, and after the newest 
and most approved London patterns.” 

In 1802 was advertised “‘a large assortment of ele- 
gant well-made and highly finished and in black and 
gold, etc., Fancy chairs with cane and rush bottoms,” 
and in 1806 “‘a large and very elegant assortment of 
Fancy chairs of the newest patterns and finished in a 
superior style. Elegant white, coquilicot, green, etc. 
and gilt drawing-room chairs, with cane and rush 
seats, together with a handsome assortment of dining 
and bedroom chairs, etc.”’ 

So popular were the chairs that this style of deco- 
ration was adapted to other kinds of furniture. In 
1817 “an elegant assortment of curled maple painted, 
ornamented landscape, sewing and rocking chairs, 
lounges, settees, sofas, music stools, etc.”’ was oftered 
for sale. 

Here also is a clock made by Simon Willard, Jr., 
of Boston, in modern parlance a banjo clock, in form 
a purely American adaptation of the English wall 
clock patented by Simon Willard, Sr., in 1802. Upon 
its glasses appear the opening and the final stage of 
the famous sea-fight between the Guerricre and the 
Constitution, 


Fe toherse bee Pele OrOrk 


we) 
CO 
~I 


PaoOsoruvi F ROOM BAL TIM.O°'R-E 
MARYLAND 


This beautiful room was originally the drawing- 
room in a three-story brick house, erected shortly 
before the War of 1812, and still standing at 915 
East Pratt Street, Baltimore—the Baltimore whose 
name, memorializing the founder of Maryland, will 
ever be associated also with the Star Spangled Ban- 
ner, written in 1814 by Francis Scott Key. This 
poem, scribbled on the back of a letter while its 
author was in confinement aboard a cartel ship that 
accompanied the British fleet during their night 
attack on one of Baltimore’s protecting fortifications, 
Fort McHenry, was handed a few days later to a 
friend in Baltimore. With it were given instructions 
to have printed above the poem that it was to be 
sung to the air of Anacreon in Heaven. It was 
printed immediately, and while the ink was still wet 
was sung for the first time in a tavern near the original 
location of this room. 

The spirit of the time is well suggested by the 
architectural quality of the room and its furnishings, 
many of which were originally used in Baltimore 
(fig. 100). 

The characteristics of the interior architecture of 
the Early Republic are seen in the woodwork. The 
attenuation of proportion in the architectural mem- 
bers—pilasters, colonnettes, and cornices; the deli- 
cate scale of the decoration and its careful restraint; 
the symmetrical wall compositions; these are all ex- 
pressive of the taste which had developed with the 
opening of the nineteenth century. The most funda- 


th 
+i 


238 THE AMERICAN WING 


mental change from the rooms on the floor above 1s 
the reduced amount of paneling. Here the plaster 
walls are unmoulded, the architectural composition 
consisting simply of the studied relation of the open- 
ings, the walls, and the trim. Even the space between 


| chair-rail and baseboard is unpaneled. 


The arrangements of the fireplace and window 
walls are symmetrical. The disposition of the wood- 
work is based upon the classic orders with pilasters 
and entablature. The alcoves flanking the fireplace 
carry out a composition usual throughout the eigh- . 
teenth century, a variation of which is the use of china 
cupboards such as those in the room from Oriole, 
Maryland, directly above. 

The treatment of the detail has an unusually per- 
sonal quality which relates it closely to the woodwork 
in Homewood, the Carroll house, now the property 
of Johns Hopkins University. These two Baltimore 
houses were probably built within a year or so of one 
another and the same architect no doubt did both. 

The detail, refined in the extreme, employs a lim- 
ited number of motifs. Reeding, delicate gouged 
fluting, bead-and-reel, and pearl ornament complete 
the list of decorative elements. Combined with the 
various run mouldings of the trim, many of which are 
unusual and some of which are gouged with delicate 
little flutes, is a round, reed-like fillet such as that 
seen surrounding the oval panels. These oval panels 
under the windows, in the alcoves, and in the fireplace 
give an unusual and distinctive effect. 

The relation of this woodwork is much closer to 
furniture of the Sheraton influence than it 1s to more 
purely architectural form. It is very consistent in its 
delicate scale and such subtleties as the entasis on the 


Brees Th O10uR 239 


engaged elliptical colonnettes of the doorways are 
wholly in keeping with the restrained and ultra-re- 
fined treatment of the design. 

The craftsmanship, too, is of a quality equal to 
the design. All the detail is of wood, accurately 
worked. No composition ornament appears. The 
pearls and the bead-and-reel, as well as the elliptical 
colonnettes, are all wrought from the solid pine. 

The furniture shows a strong Sheraton influence. 
The buffet and mixing-table, both from Baltimore, 
are of mahogany finished in the light tone which is 
usual in combination with light inlay. The inlay is 
restrained, the oval lines repeating the ovals of the 
woodwork, the straight lines emphasizing the struc- 
tural quality of the design. The buffet with its curved 
stretcher recalls the treatment often employed by 
Robert Adam; the whole piece is a distinctly original 
variation of the sideboard design. The mixing-table, 
with its marble top and its decanter drawers, is a 
design thoughtfully evolved for a particular use. The 
tamboured roll-top is a delicate bit of complicated 
construction. The dining-table and chairs, all Balti- 
more pieces, and the pair of breakfast tables preserve 
the same type of inlaid and carved Sheraton. 

The pictures in this room are chiefly by Saint- 
Mémin and are such as might have hung in any Balti- 
more room, since the artist did much portraiture in 
Baltimore and its vicinity. The one exception is a 
mezzotint, printed in color, of the Washington family. 
The assembling of this group affords an excellent 
opportunity to compare the variety of methods used 
by this talented young ex-officer in the army of 
France. 

Charles Balthasar Julien Fevret de Saint-Mémin 


220 THE AVMOEGER LC AUN Wel 


after the Revolution found his way to New York 
(1794), where he received the suggestion of taking up 
engraving for a livelihood from his host, John R. 
Livingston, from whose country seat, Mount Pitt, 
one of his New York etchings (1796) was made. Mr. 
Livingston’s story (given below) of the entrance of 
Saint-Mémin into engraving leaves no doubt but 
that this, the best of our eighteenth-century etchers 
and engravers, learned his art in this city. 


“MM. de St.-Mémin did not delay in associating themselves 
intimately with my family. They had come to stay with us ina 
charming house, situated outside New York, dominating the 
town, and from which one enjoyed a superb view which on one 
side included the entire Harbour. Charmed by the beauty of the 
landscape, M. de Saint-Mémin made a very exact drawing of it. 
(As) there existed no other (on the market), we suggested to him 
the idea of engraving and circulating it. I introduced him myself 
to the public library, where he learned from the Encyclopaedia 
the first principles of engraving. He soon made himself a master 
of this art. He was endowed by nature with a strong will and a 
trained mind; had an excellent aptitude for all the sciences, 
remarkable skill, and perseverance equal to any proof.’’ 


The large crayons illustrate Saint-Meémin’s skill in 
portraiture. Their outlines were obtained by tracing 
on paper the shadow of the head cast by the light of a 
candle. The large portrait was then engraved ona 
small copper plate which along with the original and 
twelve prints was delivered to the sitter for the sum 
of thirty-three dollars, a fairly stiff price for the day. 
His work was in such demand that there are still in 
existence nearly nine hundred of these portraits, 
similar in character to that shown, the portrait of 
Theodosia Burr, whose life and unhappy fate is one 
of the sad romances of our history. The other tiny 
portraits are of DeWitt Clinton and his wife, made 


le stiasiameuniennannl 
SI epee ON 


we 


= 





ROOM FROM BALTIMORE, MARYLAND 


IO0Oo. 


FIG. 


242 THE AMERUGAN: WoilwaG 


years before Clinton became such an important figure 
in our city’s history. 

Saint-Mémin did not confine his art to engraving. 
Another and less common variety of his portraiture 
‘s the etched silhouette. The profile in water color on 
paper of that delightful Nelly Custis, stepchild and 
adopted daughter of Washington, is from his brush 
and pencil. After his return to France in 1814, his 
crayon, by the use of lithograph, furnished the only 
contemporary picture known of Fulton’s first steam- 
boat, the Clermont, evidently done from a sketch 
made while in this country. 

On the mantelpiece are two candlesticks with 
Wedgwood bases and cut-glass drops. They are of 
very fine quality and of a character suitable to such 
a room as this. The glass drops have the very un- 
usual feature of being cut out of yellow glass. The. 
bronze gilt clock, with the figure of Washington, 
‘s also of French workmanship. The oil lamps with 
Wedgwood bases came originally from an old Balti- 
more house, while the silver-plated candelabra of - 
the period of 1790 belonged in the Carlisle house 
at Alexandria, at which Washington was a frequent 
visitor. 

The method of draping the curtains in this room 
has been adapted from a plate in Ackerman's Reposi- 
tory of Arts for 1815. These are shown in the old 
plate as of blue satin and white mull. The blue satin 
curtains and blue and white brocaded valance are 
materials of finest quality dating from the first decade 
of the nineteenth century. The fringe and cut velvet 
braid of the valance are original. The fringe and tas- 
sels of the curtains are of modern manufacture, but 


copy the old design and color. 





ROOM FROM PETERSBURG, VIRGINIA 


TOw: 


FIG, 


244 THE eAeMrE Ra C ALN o Wel Nee 


A contemporary authority for this use of blue satin 
‘s found in a letter of that interesting character, 
Madame Jumel, to her daughter, dated New York, 
May 24, 1817: “I am engaged the present time in 
setting your room in order. It is admired by every- 
one that see it. Your curtains is of blue sattain 
trimm’d with silver fringe and your toilet the 
same.” 
Oo ee Se EE EE 

ROOM FROM PETERSBURG 
ViIR'G PNA 


on  ——————— —— 


In this most elaborate room from a house on East 
Bank Street, Petersburg, Virginia, built by Robert 
Moore about 1800, we have a direct successor to the 
Adam interior of the eighteenth century. The archi- 
tectural composition and the decorations are an 
elaborate and interesting provincial rendition of the 
Adam formula (fig. 101). 

The wall treatment employs Ionic pilasters raised 
upon pedestals supporting a complete entablature, 
and the fireplace is flanked with elliptical arches 
springing from piers. Practically every available sur- 
face is decorated, the mouldings of the cornice, its 
sofht, the frieze, and the architrave carrying applied 
composition ornament in a variety of designs. The 
pilaster caps are crude, the shafts fluted, and the 
bases moulded. 

The chair-rail, too, is decorated with applied com- 
position ornament, as are the panels of the pilaster 
pedestals and the moulding of the baseboard. Rather 
original and unusual are the reeded window reveals. 

The old marble mantel, while not the original one, 
is of a size similar to the original and of appropriate 


Faieras chy shel O2O.R DAs 


character, while the steel grate of Adam type repeats 
the use of swags, flowers, decorated mouldings, and 
medallions in delicate relief, which are seen in the 
ornament of the woodwork. 

The walls are hung with old bright yellow satin 
brocade of a shade and design very popular in the 
period. Rooms hung with silk fabrics were not un- 
common, particularly in the southern and middle 
states. We know that Richard Derby’s house in 
Boston had silk hangings on the walls of several 
rooms in 1825. A description of this house in that 
year is found in Miss Quincy’s journal. 


“The principal drawing-room was large and brilliantly lighted, 
and opening from it was a suite of smaller apartments, some lined 
with paintings, others hung with silk and illuminated by shade 
lamps and lights in alabaster vases, to produce the effect of moon- 
light. These apartments terminated in a boudoir only large 
enough to hold two or three people. It was hung with light blue 
silk and furnished with sofas and curtains of the same hue. It 
also contained an immense mirror, placed so as to reflect the rest 
of the rooms.” 


The furniture, all of Sheraton type, is mostly of the 
carved and moulded variety. The sofa with its arrows 
exemplifies the use of quasi-patriotic motifs recall- 
ing a certain touch of Louis XVI style. The chairs 
are examples of Sheraton’s carved, openwork chair- 
backs with vase forms as the basis of the design, en- 
riched with swags of flowers and drapery. 

The wing armchair is a good specimen of the up- 
holstered easy chair and is reminiscent of an earlier 
period in its form, the reeded legs and the shallow- 
ness responding to the popular taste of the later 
time. 

The pair of circular convex looking-glasses, the 


246 TH E AM ERC AON Wee 


Wedgwood candlesticks with their cut-glass drops, 
the service of Lowestoft, the porcelain urns, and all 
the other lesser appointments of the room are typical 
of the taste of the period and assist in creating an at- 
mosphere truly suggestive of the early nineteenth 
century in a well-to-do householder’s drawing-room. 

The large oval basalt plaques are of the period 
1780-1786 and bear the mark of Neale and Company 
of Hanley, England." The Washington is clearly 
modeled after the portrait by Trumbull and the . 
Franklin after the mezzotint portrait by J. Elias Held 
in 1780, in which Franklin appears with head cov- 
ered with the coonskin cap which captivated France. 





ROOM FROM FAY frees 
M A S-S AC H- Ul Shiai 





The two rooms from Haverhill, Massachusetts, of 
which this is the first, were taken from the Eagle 
house, formerly Brown’s Tavern, which was erected 
in 1818. 

Their furnishings are of the order of those in many a 
New England seaport home of the Early Republic, 
when the New England shipwrights launched by 
scores the splendid vessels which carried our flag into 
every port of the globe, and returned with cargoes 
which brought wealth to their owners and the 
attendant luxury of living to the community. 

In this room we have a typical example of the 
early nineteenth-century interior from north of Bos- 
ton furnished as a parlor. The Adam tradition forms 
the basis of the design, and shows itself in the use of 
composition ornament and delicate pilasters. Its 1m- 


1 Now in the main exhibition gallery. 


‘ 


TITIHYAAVH WOU WOON ‘COL ‘Ola 


SLLASOHOVSSVN 








248 T HE AsM’E ReLC A Nee Walia 


mediate suggestion, no doubt, came from one or 
another of the authenticated books of furniture 
design. 

The paneled chimney-breast, divided into mantel 
and overmantel sections, carries the most elaborate 
decoration. Gouge-work runs around the frame of 
the overmantel, a method of decoration attributed at 
this time, shortly after the War of 1812, to the les- 
sened importation of composition ornament from 
England. 

The cornice is typical of this period, based upon 
such designs as those shown in the books of Asher 
Benjamin. Different kinds of fretwork were used in 
the friezes, of which this in our room is one of the most 
successful. The small pearls which originally ran all 
around this frieze below the fretwork give a scale and 
sparkle (fig. 102). The plain wooden wainscot em- 
phasizes by contrast the decoration on the chair-rail. 

The richly colored wall-paper gives a very charac- 
teristic atmosphere to the room. It is a French paper 
on the back of which was found the mark of Jacque- 
mart et Bénard, the successors to Reveillon, the 
greatest of late eighteenth-century French wall-paper 
manufacturers. The scene pictures the story of a 
hunt from its start at a chateau to the finish. The 
drawing is far above the average and the bright scar- 
let coats of the huntsmen stand out in brilliant relief 
against the darker tones of the scenic background. 
The costumes of the ladies are similar to those pub- 
lished in 1814 in Ackerman’s Repository of Arts, 
and the chars a bancs de chasse are of the style of 
those illustrated in L’Art de conduire et d’atteler as 
being of the end of the first quarter of the nineteenth 
century. Added interest is given to this paper by the 


leis ves tale) eit 249 


fact that a full set of these scenes still remains on the 
walls of the John A. Andrew house, built in 1818 at 
Salem, Massachusetts. 

The furniture here is New England Hepplewhite 
and Sheraton. Much fine furniture in this style was 
made in Boston and its vicinity—the tall clock a 
mahogany was made by Aaron Willard, Jr., 
Boston. Above the dial of this some miniaturist A 
painted the famous naval combat between the 
Guerriere and the Constitution. A great deal of the 
furniture carried out the popular taste for light tones 
in the wood. Satinwood or burled maple veneers 
were often employed, combined with light-toned 
mahogany and narrow lines of inlay. The old fabrics 
which cover the furniture and drape the windows are 
all of the early nineteenth century and include satin 
brocades, taffeta, and other typical materials. 
The gilded arrows on which the curtains are draped 
follow a design in Ackerman’s Repository of Arts 
for 1810. 

Over the mantel hangs a ship portrait by Anton 
Roux of Marseilles of the famous Constitution, “Old 
Ironsides,” painted in 1806 just after the successes 
in the naval campaign against Tripoli. 





ReOvOuiager RIO MM H-Acy ER Hil Lol 
hMevss Ss ATH US*E 1 Tos 





The second room from the Eagle house at Hav- 
erhill has been .furnished as a New England bed- 
room. 

Its woodwork follows the same disposition as that 
in the preceding room, but here the decoration is less 
varied and is all of wood. In addition to conventional 


250 THE ACMUECRTL GeAS Nie Pp Wie NeG 


mouldings it consists of fluted bands on frieze and 
chair-rail and about the fireplace, of fluted pilasters, 
and little else except a small bead-and-reel which 
follows the fireplace opening and decorates a mould- 
ing of the shelf. It is a personal variation of the same 
tradition as its companion room (fig. LOG}: 

The window curtains are made of an old toile de 
Jouy,! the design of which reproduces two medal- 
lions, one bearing the head of Washington ? over 
whose shoulder is a rod surmounted by a liberty cap. 
The other medallion pictures the infant Hercules 
(America) standing in a cradle and strangling two 
serpents (the British armies at Saratoga and York- 
town), while Minerva (France) stands by, helmeted 
and with spear in hand, ready to strike a leopard 
(England) whose attacks she wards off with her 
shield, decked with the lilies of France. The medal- 
lions reproduced are those on the medal made by 
Dupré in 1782, designed and ordered by Franklin, as 
may be seen from the following extract from his letter 
to the Honorable Robert R. Livingston, Secretary for 
Foreign Affairs, under date of Passy, March 4, 
Ase 

“This puts me in mind of a medal I have in mind to strike 
since the late great event [Yorktown] you gave me an account 
of, representing the United States by the figure of an infant 
Hercules in his cradle, strangling the two serpents; and France 
by that of Minerva, sitting by as his nurse, with her spear and 
helmet, and her robe specked by a few “fleur de lis” The ex- 
tinguishing of two entire armies in one war is what has rarely 


happened, and it gives a presage of the future force of our grow- 
ing empire.” 


1 This toile de Jouy is hung at the windows flanking the fireplace. 
2 Substituted for the head of a beautiful woman which appeared in 
the medal. 


SLLASNHOVSSVN “TITHUAAVH WOU NWOOU ‘Col "old 





252 THE (A*M ER IC ACN?  Wilehee 


The legends, LIBERTAS AMERICANA, and NON SINE 
pIIs ANIMosUS INFANS—Not without divine help 1s 
the child courageous—were supplied to Franklin by 
Sir William Jones, the great Oriental and classical 
scholar of Great Britain. | 

It is possible that this same toile de Jouy may 
have been among those noted along with other tex- 
tiles by Thomas Jefferson in his pocket account book 
when he was fitting up his first house in rue Tete- 
bout, Paris, as follows: ‘Dec. 20, 1784 pd Hotel de 
Jabac for Toile de Jouy (red) 621 f, Mar. 8, 7 pr 
lawn curtains Lrs—18, red damask window curtains 
3 pr 20-10, blue damask window curtains 3 pr L24 
~3, blue damask bed curtains Lg, red calico window 
curtains 2 pr f13-4, red calico bed curtains 2 sets 
fe1-13, Feb. 2, 1785 for Hotel de Jabac Toile de - 
Jouy f2s0-0.” These were removed to his second 
house, Hétel de Langeac. All of Jefferson’s furnish- 
ings were carefully packed for shipment and used in 
his New York and Philadelphia residences and 
finally at Monticello. 

It is an interesting note that among the original 
cartoons of toile de Jouy on exhibition in the Musée 
des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, and reproduced in Series 9 
of (Euvres de Huet et son école, is an example of 
what might be called the first state of this print, the 
cupids in the original being erased to make place for 
these designs so closely related to the War of Inde- 
pendence and Benjamin Franklin. 

The old brass tie-backs for the curtains, often 
used as mirror knobs, are ornamented with relief 
portraits of General Washington and the “spread 
eagle.” 

The bed hangings and the covering of the wing 


elie lat Le OF OER: 253 


chair are made of one of the old red printed linens,! 
manufactured especially for American consumption, 
among the allegorical designs on which are to be 
found figures of Washington and Franklin, the 
“Liberty Tree,” etc. The Washington portrait was 
taken from the mezzotint by Valentine Green, 
scraped in 1781, after the portrait in oil painted from 
memory by John Trumbull of Connecticut shortly 
after his arrival in London in 1780, which is hung in 
the adjoining room, along with other bequests from 
Charles Allen Munn. The Franklin is clearly after 
one of the terracotta medallions modeled by Jean 
Baptiste Nini, the manager of the terracotta factory 
of Le Ray de Chaumont, host to Franklin during his 
nine years’ stay at Passy. There is a record of a 
material of similar design that covered the entire 
wall in an old New England room. 

The wall-paper is of considerable interest. It is 
French of pre-Directoire design and has recently been 
removed from the Imlay house in Allentown, New 
Jersey. This paper, with that of the bedroom above 
it in.the original house, was purchased from William 
Poyntell of Philadelphia, at a total cost of £13—-3-6, 
as is seen on his bill dated April 18, 1794. 

The furniture of this room, chiefly of New England 
Sheraton types, includes the four-poster bed with a 
painted tester, the chest of drawers, a desk and dress- 
ing table, and a very fine chest-on-chest decorated 
with sculptured figures and carving. This chest was 
made for the famous Elias Hasket Derby house at 
Salem, Massachusetts. The carved figurines on the 
top are attributed to Samuel McIntire, the famous 


1’The same designs with the addition of a pyramid are found on a 
similar linen bearing the stamp “Henry Gardiner, Wandsworth, Surrey.” 


254 THE ACM EcRal CoALN OWelane 


wood-carver, who was the architect for this Derby 
house. On the mantelpiece pottery busts and statu- 
ettes are the work of the Woods, a family in England 
famed for their modeling in clay. The Franklin 
is by Aaron Wood (1717-1785); the Washingtons 
bear the impression of Ralph Wood (1748-1795) and 
Enoch Wood (1759-1840) with the date 1818. 
THE CHARLES A LL Eats 
ROOM 

Philadelphia, ever associated with William Penn 
and Benjamin Franklin, the city of historic memories 
where the Declaration of Independence was made and 
the Constitution of the new United States framed 
and adopted, is represented by another room of the 
Early Republic, two of the doorways and the beauti- 
ful window trim and chair-rail being obtained from a 
house still standing at 237 South Third Street." dhe 
two mantelpieces, made in Philadelphia, come from 
the Beltzhoover house at Carlisle, Pennsylvania. 

This woodwork, like that of the other rooms on 
this floor, is an Adam derivative. The swags, grouped 
colonnettes, decorated mouldings, and chair-rail all 
recall the earlier motifs which Adam employed in 
both carved wood and composition (fig. 104). 

Much composition ornament 1s here used. On one 
of the mantelpieces is the maker’s name, Robert Well- 
ford,2 who was a flourishing composition ornament 
manufacturer of the early nineteenth century. 

The two mantelpieces bear panels of historic sig- 


1 Obtained through the courtesy of the officials of the Catawissa 
Railroad. : 
» See Museum Bulletin, vol. xiv, p. 36. 


MUOMGOOM VIHdTAGVTIHd SMOHS 
WOOU SIHL “NOOUY NNOW NATIV SATAVHO AHL [VOle.o ou 





256 TH E “A MERIC AlN) aaa 


nificance, commemorative of the War of 1812. In the 
central panel of one 1s shown Perry’s Victory on Lake 
Erie (1813) while on the other is set a panel with a 
sarcophagus bearing the legend “Sacred to the 
Memory of Departed Heroes ’ and surmounted by an 
American eagle with wings outspread, clutching a 
sprig of laurel. This sarcophagus is flanked by weep- 
ing willow trees and mourning doves. The composi- 
tion is typical of the sentimentality of the day when 
ladies wrought upon silk needlework pictures of the 
tombs of Washington and other heroes, encompassed 
with weeping willows and mourning figures. 

The pair of vases on one of the mantels with their 
“spread eagle’’ decoration have long been in the 
possession of an old Knickerbocker family. 

Two of the doorways and the two window frames 
came from the house still standing in South Third 
Street, Philadelphia. The cornice follows one in the 
house. 

Here are brought together pieces of Sheraton fur- 
niture and other utilitarian arts which bear some 
patriotic insignia. Groups of furniture inlaid with the 
American eagle give some idea of the varieties of 
furniture decorated with this medallion. Brass and- 
irons have the eagle in openwork and etched design. 
The tall clock of maple by Storrs of Utica, New 
York, has a spread eagle inlaid in its case and 1s an 
unusually handsome example of this type of inlaid 
furniture. 

The walls of this room are hung with portraits of 
Washington by Charles Willson Peale, Rembrandt 
Peale, John Trumbull, and Adolf Wertmiller, and of 
the naval heroes, Commodores Hull and Decatur, 


by Gilbert Stuart and John Trumbull (probably) 


PemeResel ee Ft) O- One ory 


respectively, the bequest of Charles Allen Munn, to 
whose memory this room has been dedicated. 

On leaving this room the visitor passes through 
a narrow passageway. The first two cases on the 
right contain American glass of the three-section- 
mould types, the next two cases contain Stiegel glass 
of the Hunter Collection from the engraved and en- 
ameled groups. This passageway leads into a larger 
gallery where in the windows is displayed the 
colored Stiegel glass from the Hunter Collection and 
around the walls is the fine early American silver 
brought together through many years by the Honor- 
able A. T. Clearwater.! Marking the exit from the 
American Wing into this room is a doorway of the 
early nineteenth century from Savannah, Georgia. 


1 For a full treatment of this silver see American Silver of the Seven- 
teenth and Eighteenth Centuries by C. Louise Avery. 


a: 
are 
ee 
nO 


EKxtert 
eye) ean) 0) ee) 


FACADE of the United States Branch Bank, 
former! ) at 15 Wall Street 


Secsecsecsecie¢ HE south wall of the American Wing, the 
SacdexGSeSxC3¢ only exterior wall which in the eventual 
SacduG T Sa653¢ carrying out of the Museum plan will 
SCS Geel be exposed to view, has been composed 
SAGCCRR about the interesting old facade of the 
United States Branch Bank which until a few years 
ago stood at 15 Wall Street. This building was erected 
between 1822 and 1824 from the plans of a well-known 
architect of the day, M. E. Thompson. The material 
is Tuckahoe marble from Westchester County. 

The design may be considered representative of its 
period, when classical forms were being used with 
almost archaeological restraint. A low first story 
with rusticated engaged piers supports a high upper 
story whose central motif is a quatrostyle Ionic colon- 
nade of free-standing columns supporting an entabla- 
ture and pediment. 

The mouldings are undecorated and follow con- 
ventional forms. Carved brackets support the win- 
dow-sills. The-central pavilion brings together the 
principal decoration of the wall, the flanking bays | 
being very simply treated. The round-arched door- 
way varies the general lintel construction. 

258 


Fulgeessr- FL.0-OIR 50 


As the facade stands today there shows above it a 
brick parapet. This is not part of the original but is 
a necessary part of the modern building behind it. 

From 1824 to 1836 the building in Wall Street was 
the home of the United States Branch Bank. From 
1836 to 1854 it was occupied by the. Bank of the 
State of New York, and from 1854 until 1914 it 
housed the United States Assay Office. 

When the new United States Assay Office was built, 
the old stones of the facade were carefully taken 
down, numbered, and stored, through the efforts of 
Robert W. de Forest, and have been re-erected in 
their present location. The window sash, doors, and 
transom are all modern. 

The facade of the wing faces upon a courtyard laid 
out with flagged walks and planted with shrubs and 
trees. In fair weather, the visitor may cross the gar- 
den by the main path from the American Wing to 
Wing C. 7 

Set into the pavements here are five burr-mill- 
stones. Four of these “run of stone,” known as 
French stones, were used by Colonel Aaron Barlow 
and his brother, Joel Barlow, American Minister to 
France during the period of Napoleon’s Russian cam- 
paign, in their mill on the Saugatuck River, at West 
Redding, Connecticut. The fifth stone was formerly 
used in a gristmill, long ago abandoned at Easton, 
Fairfield County, Connecticut. These stones were 
presented for use in the garden court by Pierpont 
Adams, Kempton Adams, and Francis Lobdell. 





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Index 


ACKERMAN’S REposITorY OF ARTS, 
227, 2425246, 249 

ApamM, Ropert, architect, biogra- 
phical notes, 197-199; establish- 
ment of new style in art, 197; 
influence of style, 143, 197, 200, 
226, 234, 239, 244, 245, 246, 
ass 

Apams, JOHN, quoted, 186, 191 

ApaMs, JOHN QuINcy, association 
with Gadsby’s Tavern, 176 

Apams, Kempton, gift, 259 

ApaMs, Pierpont, gift, 259 

Aupany, N. Y., spread eagle fur- 
niture, 215 

ALEXANDER, Mary, N. Y., will 
(1756), 127 

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Gadsby’s Tav- 
ern, ballroom exhibited, 172, 
173 (fig. 76); mantelpiece ex- 
hibited, 161, 163 (fig. 74) 

ALEXANDRIA, Va., GAZETTE, ad- 
vertisement, 222 

Attentown, N. J., wall-paper 
exhibited, 253 

Autston, WASHINGTON, painter, 
miniature exhibited, 232 

AMERICAN ART, division into three 
periods, xvil; Ist Period, xvii, 
oe 98 (figs. I- 48), transition be 
ginning about 1680, 39, sum- 
mary, 64, rooms, 65-98; 2d 
Period, xx, 99-196 (figs. 46—- 
78), summary, 155, rooms, 1$6—- 
foos 2 grd | Petiod, xix, 197-257 
(figs. 79-104), rooms, 225-257 

AMERICAN EAGLE, Seé ale de- 
sign 

AmERIcAN Wino of The Metropol- 
itan Museum of Art, history, 
vil; collection of material, vii; 


gift of building, vii; plans pre- 


267 


pared, vii; collections arranged, 

Vil; exterior, 258; garden court, 

259; plan a arrangement, xvi]; 

floor plans, 261-263 (figs. I05- 

107) 

3rd Floor (1st Period), ix, 65- 
98; floor plan, 261 (fig. 105); 
exhibition gallery, 65-72 (fig. 
39); entry from Topsfield, 74; 
kitchen from Topsfield, 74-78 
(fig. 40); parlor from Ipswich, 
78-81 (fig. 41); room from 
Newington, 81-85 (fig. 42); 
room from Hampton, 85-88 
(fig. 43); room from Ports- 
mouth, 89-94 (fig. 44); room 
from Woodbury, 94-98 (fig. 


45) 
ad Floor (2d Period), x, 156- 
196; floor plan, 262 (fig. 106); 
exhibition gallery, 157-161 
(fig. 73); alcove, 161-166 (fig. 
74); room from Oriole, 166- 
171 (fig. 75); ballroom from 
Alexandria, 172-179 (fig. 76); 
room from Marmion, 179-183 
(fig. 77); room from Philadel- 
phia, 183-196 (fig. 78) 
tst Floor (9rd Period) x; 225— 
2573 floor plan, 263 (fig. 107); 
exhibition gallery, 226-233 
(fig. 98); alcove, 234-236 (fig. 
99); room from Baltimore, 
237-244 (fig. 100); room from 
Petersburg, 244-246 (fig. 101); 
parlor from Haverhill, 246- 
249 (fig. 102); bedroom from 
Haverhill, 249-254 (fig. 103); 
Charles Allen Munn Room, 
254-257 (fig. 104) 
““ANACREON IN HEAVEN,” air, 237 
Anpré, Major Joun, quoted, 194 


268 TiNeD box 


Anprew (John A.) House, Salem, 
Mass., wall-paper, 249 
AnpREws, JouN, settles Newing- 
ton, Conn., 81 
Antuony, Isaac, goldsmith, ad- 
vertisement, 116 
ARCHITECTURE 
General: books used, 103, 2025 
difficulty of dating, 86; lo- 
cal peculiarities, 4, 6; preva- 
lence of wood, 5; relation to 
other arts, xx; simplicity 
explained, 4, 73; typical 
house, 4, 7, 8, 10 
Construction: §-7, 10, 101; 
chimneys, 6, 7, 42, 101; 
classic orders, 200, 258; 
doors, 6,.74, 76, 92, 101, 
9.58; Exteriors, 4,0) 7542s 
IOl,, 200, 258; exteriors, 
decoration, 5, 7, 42, 101, 
200, 202, 258; facade, 258; 
framing, 5, 6, 10, 66, 76, 
77, 78, 82; framing, Old 
Ship Meeting House, 66; 
materials, 5, 42, 258; plans, 
4, 5, 6, 8, 41, 42, 101, 182, 
200; plans, English, 199; 
porticoes, 202; roofs, 6, 7, 
42, 66; windows, 5, 6, 8, 
42, 68, 70, “F7an COLO 


84, 96, 102, 157, 180, 238, 
244, 246; cornices, 82, 92, 
96, 102, 226, 2345 2375 244, 
248; cupboards, 84, 94, 
167, 171, 182; cut-out work 
(or silhouetting), 5, 10, 96; 
doors, 76, 90, 92, 157, 167, 
177, 182, 226, 254, 2573 
entries, 6, 74; fireplaces, 
6, 8, 41, 76, 80, 81, 82, 84, 
g6, 101, 167, 177, 182, 183, 
238, 244; fireplace alcoves, 
238; floors, 227; halls, 41, 
101; mantels and over-man- 
tels, 102, 1577, 161, 167, 188, 
234, 244, 248, 254; mould- 
ing, 5, 10, 41, 80, 82, 84, 
92, 96, 102, 1$7> 167, 177, 
187, 234, 238, 244, 250, 2545 
painting, 80, 96, 164, 177, 
182, 234; paneling (stile 
and rail), 40, 82, 86, 92, 
102, 180; paneling inserted 
into older rooms, 86, 89; 
shutters, 82; staircases, 6, 
Al; 74, 94. (sectet)y, 10%: 
turning, 5, 10, 12; wain- 
scots, 102, 188; walls, 6, 
41, 74-96, 157-188, 2. 6= 
254; windows, 8, TOT a 
80, 164, 167, 182, 188 


workshop of Duncan Phyfe, Styles: 


224 

Foreign influences: Continen- 
tal, 39, 88, 182, 188; Orien- 
fal; 29 

Interiors and woodwork: 6-8, 
10, 40, 65-96, 102, 147-488, 
202, 207, 226-254; applied 
relief, 102, 188, 202, 234, 
244, 246, 248, 254; balcony, 
musicians’, 177; blinds, 
Venetian, 130, 179; carving, 
10, 12, 82, 157, 254; ceilings, 
7, 41, 86, 103, 188; chair 


Ist Period: Gothic, xix, 10, 
12, 42, 66; Renaissance, 
12, 42, 82,96; Eliza- 
bethan, 4, 5, 10; Jaco- 
bean, 4; William and 
Mary, 41, 84; Queen 
Anne, 82, 84; Georgian, 
84, 96 

ad Period: baroque and ro- 
coco, 100-104, 197, 198, 
199; Georgian, 167 

3rd Period: Adam, 197, 
244, 246, 254 


rails,; 102, 164, 167,)177s By Pertod 


180, 188, 226, 238, 244, 248, 
254; chamfering, 5, 6, 10, 
66, 76, 78; classic orders, 


tst Period: early styles, xvii, 


3-12, rooms exhibited, 65~ . 
80, illustrated, 67 (fig. 39), 


Vb AN ADAM ye 


75 (fig. 40), 79 (fig. 41); 
transition, Xvili, xix, 39, 
rooms exhibited, 81-96, il- 
lustrated, 83 (fig. 42), 87 
(fig. 43), 91 (fig. 44), 95 
(fig. 45) 
2d Period: baroque and ro- 
Coco, 100-104, 197, 198, 1993 
rooms exhibited, 157-188; 
illustrated (figs. 73-78) 
3rd Period: Adam style, 197, 
244, 246, 254; contrast with 
2d Period, 199; introduc- 
tion of Adam style into 
America, 200; architectural 
books, 202; Neo-Greek in- 
fluence, 210; Bulfinch, 234; 
facade of the U. S. Branch 
Banke 16 Wall )St., 258; 
workshop of Duncan Phyfe, 
223 (fig. 97), 224; rooms ex- 
hibited, 225-259; _illus- 
trated (figs. g8-104) 
ARMS AND ARMOR, 36, 57 
ArtTHuR ET Rosert, Paris, wall- 
paper, 234 
Assay Orrice, facade, 259 
Arter, WriiiaM, Philadelphia, 
upholsterer, advertisement, 122 
ATTERBURY, GROSVENOR, plans for 
Wing, viii 
AUCTIONS, 93 
Avery, C. Louse, American Sil- 
ver, 32 (note), 140 (note), 222 
(note), 257 (note) 


B 


Bascock, Apam, Newport, R. I., 
quoted, 152 

Bacue, Mrs. RicHarp, quoted, 
186 

BACHELLER, Rey. STEPHEN, 86 

Bainspripce, Wiii1AM, in Tri- 
politan war, 220 

Battimore, Lorp, see Calvert, 
Cecil 

Battimore, Md., reproduction of 
woodwork from Homewood, 


269 


226; room from g15 E. Pratt St., 
237, 241 (fig. 100); woodwork 
from same, exhibited, 226, 231 
(fig. 98); spread eagle furniture, 
ai6 

Ba.ttimore Licut Dracoons, 216 

BaNncCKER, AprIAN, silversmith, 142 

Bancker, Fiores, N. Y., adver- 
tisement, 147 

BANCKER, RICHARD, 
ment, 123, 142 

Bank oF THE State oF N, Y., 
facade, 259 

BAPTISMAL BASINS, see Metalwork: 
Silver 

BarLow, AARON, 259 

BarLow, Joel, minister to France, 
259 

BAROQUE STYLE, development, 99; 
influence on American art, 2d 
period, 99; architecture, 99; 
furniture, 104 

Barre, Isaac, defender of Colo- 
nies in Parliament, 192 (note); 
prints, 154, 192; quoted, 196 

Barret, Mrs. JosEpH (née Anna 
Pierce), portrait, 166 

Barron, Dr. BENJAMIN SMITH, 
quoted, 184 

Bassett, Joun, N. Y., pewterer, 
138 

Batrerson, JAMES, Boston, clock- 
maker, 50 

Barry-LAanGcLey, books on archi- 
tecture, 103 

Breakers, see Metalwork: Silver 

BED-FURNISHINGS, see Upholstery 

Beps, see Furniture 

BEEKMAN House, Turtle Bay, 
N. Y. City, architectural deco- 
ration reproduced, 157, 159 (fig. 
73); carvings, 118 

BetcHer, Gov. JONATHAN, quoted, 
137; portrait exhibited, 94 

Bett, Joun, clockmaker, adver- 
tisement, 116 

BELTZHOOVER HOUSE, Carlisle, 
Pa., mantels exhibited, 254 

BENCHES, see Furniture 


advertise- 


270 


BenyAMIN, ASHER, book of archi- 
tectural details, 203, 248 

BERKELEY, BisHop GEORGE, 152 

Betry-Lamps, see Lighting 

BIBLE, 16, 20, 94, 96, 97 

BippLE, CoLoneL, letter from 
George Washington quoted, 187 

Bincuam, W1L.14M, house in Phil- 
adelphia described, 211 

BIRTHNIGHT BALLS, 174 

BLACKBURN, JOSEPH, portraits, 161 

Burnps, see Architecture 

Borten, Jacos, N. Y., silver- 
smith, 55; beaker, 52 (fig. 29); 
bowl, 58 (fig. 34) 

Boties Co.xecrion, gift of Mrs. 
Russell Sage, vii; furniture, 
XVil century, 12> (moteer 27; 
furniture, XVIII century, balus- 
trade exhibited, 164; mirrors 
exhibited, 220 

Boone, Nicuoxas, Boston, book- 
seller, 57 

Boston, Mass., culture (1720), 
50; cabinet-makers, 249; man- 
tel from Ruggles house, 234; 
plan (c. 1729), 645 silversmiths, 

2, $4, 158; see also names of 
Bostonians and houses, as 
Derby house 

Boston News LETTER, adver- 
tisements, 48, 51, §7, 58, 59, 93, 
97) 164, 168 

Bow CHINA, seé 
Porcelain 

Bow Ler, CHARLES, 90 

Bower, Mercatr, Portsmouth, 
R. I., room from house exhib- 
ited, 89, gt (fig. 44); garden, 121 
(note) 

Boy.Lston HOUSE, Boston, Mass., 
comment by John Adams, 191 

Brackets, see Furniture 

Braprorb, WiLLiAM, N. Y., pew- 
terer, 138 

Brapiey, THomas, clockmaker, 
50 

BRAND, JoHN, Boston, clockmaker, 
50 


Pottery and 


EN Dab x 


Brass, see Metalwork 

Brevoort, Joun, N. Y., silver- 
smith, 142 

Bricks, manufacture, 5; indica- 
tive of period and locality, 90 
(note); see also Architecture 

Brinner, Joun, N. Y., cabinet- 
maker, advertisement, 117 

BritisH Arcuirect or, the Build- 
ers’ Treasury of Stair-cases, 104 

Brocapes, see Upholstery 

BrocaTEL_es, see Upholstery 

Bronzes, see Metalwork 

Brown anv Ke xtoce, lithogra- 
phers, 228 

Browne House, Watertown, 
Mass., windows reproduced, 76, 
80 

Brown’s Tavern, rooms exhib- 
ited, 246, 249 

Brurr, CHARLES OLIver, gold- 
smith, advertisement, 194 

BrurF, JAMES, advertisement, I51 

BucHanan, THOMAS, I7I 

Burrerts, see Furniture 


Butrincu, CHARLES, architect, 
226, 234; Ruggles house man- 
telpiece exhibited, 234, 235 
(fig. 99) 


Burcts, Witt, publisher, 64, 85; 
engraving, 155 (fig. 72) 

Burke, Epmunp, print of, exhib- 
ited, 192 

Burnet, Gov. WILLIAM, inven- 
tory (1729),,G2 122 

Burr, THEODOSIA, portrait ex- 
hibited, 240 


C 


CapWaALaDER (Joun L.) CoLiec: 
TION, 148 

CADWALLADER HouSE, Philadel- 
phia, table exhibited, 186 

Caicos, see Upholstery 

CaLiMAncoeEs, see Upholstery 

CaLttow, SrepHEN, upholsterer, 
advertisement, 123 

Ca.vert, Cecit (Lord Baltimore), 
settlement of Maryland, 166 


INDEX Dori 


CamBripGE, Mass., see Harvard 
College 

Camtets, see Upholstery 

CANDELABRA, see Lighting 

Cann es, see Lighting 

CANDLESTICKS AND 
STANDS, see Metalwork 

Caner, Rev. Henry, portrait ex- 
hibited, 94 

Canvases, see Upholstery 

Capen HOUSE, Topsfield, Mass., 
7; reproduction of entry and 
kitchen, 75 (fig. 40) 

CArtiste,. Pa., mantels 
Beltzhoover house, 254 

CARLISLE HOUSE, Alexandria, can- 
delabra, 242 

CAROLINE, QUEEN, portrait, 171 


CANDLE- 


from 


Carpets, floor and table, see 
Upholstery 

Carrot (Charles) HOUSE, 226 
Carson, Rosert, inventory 


Ce784)5 130 

Caup_e-cups, see Metalwork: Sil- 
ver 

CeILinocs, see Architecture 

Ceramics, see Pottery and Porce- 
lain 

CHAIR PADS AND CUSHIONS, See 
Upholstery 

CHAIR RAILS, see Architecture 

CHAIRS, see Parnicire 

CHALLEN, WILLiAM, N. Y., 
maker, advertisement, 236 

CHANDELIERS, see Furniture; 
Lighting; Metalwork 

CuHartes ALLEN Munn Roow, 
254-255 (fig. 104) 

“Cuartes Town,” S. C., pros- 
pect (c. 1737) exhibited, 42 

CuatuamM, Eart or, see Pitt, 
William 

CHECKS, see Upholstery 

CuELsea, see Pottery and Porce- 
lain, English 

Cuest cLotus, see Upholstery 

Cuests, see Furniture 

CHIMNEYS, see Architecture 

CHINA SILKS, see Upholstery 


chair- 


Cuintzes, see Upholstery 

CHIPPENDALE, THOMAS, cabinet- 
maker, 1083 style, 108, 114, 119 
Cige 9 aera ere ca) Toa tig 
H5), 127 (he. 56), 183; 204, 206 
(fig. 81), 206 

CHODOWIECKI, DANIEL NICOLANO, 
drapery in engravings, 126 


CINCINNATI, ORDER OF THE, em- 
blem on Chinese Lowestoft, 
2092230 


Crry Hatt, New York City, mar- 
ble paving as precedent, 227 

CiacceTT, THomas, Newport, 
R. L., clockmaker, clock exhib- 
ited, 166 

CLARK HOUSE, Boston, 180 

CLaAssIcAL ART, influence on late 
Renaissance art, 99; on late 
XVIII century art, 197; on 3rd 
Period of American Alto XE, 
Ho 

CLEARWATER COLLECTION, 32, 
55, 140 (note), 222 (note), 257 

CLEMENS, JAMES, Boston, adver- 
tisement, 138 

CLEOPATRA’S BARGE, 228 

CLERMONT, 242 

Ciinton, DEWrrTT, portrait ex- 
hibited, 240 

Cuinton, DeWitt, Mrs., 
exhibited, 240 

CLOCKS AND CLOCKMAKERS, 48, 
115; exhibited, 166 (by Clag- 
gett), 168, 170, 188, 220, 236 and 
249 (by Willard), 242, 256 (by 
Storrs); illustrated, 129 (fig. 57), 
216 (fig. 89); for cases,see Furni- 
ture 

Coa, imported, 56, 136 

Copman, Ocpben, library of archi- 
tecture, 104 (note) 

Corrin, WiLiiamM, metalworker, 
advertisement, 136 

CoIns, 32 

Cote, Eunice, witch, 86 

CoLies, CHRISTOPHER, biograpni- 
cal notes, 233; portrait exhib- 


ited, 233 


portrait 


279. 


CoLron AND STEWART, merchants, 
advertisement, 222 

Connecticut, see Connecticut 
River Valley; Easton; Hartford; 
New Haven; Newington; West 
Redding; Windsor 

Connecticut River VALLEY, set- 
tlement, 81; typical interior ex- 
hibited, 81-85 

ConstiruTIon, frigate, 236 

ConrTENTS, TABLE OF, 1x 

Conway, Henry SEYMovR, prints 
of, 154 

Cony, Joun, Boston, silversmith 
and engraver, 54; inkstand ex- 
hibited, 54, 55 (fig. 31); por- 
ringer, 57 (fig. 33); teapot, 141 
(fig. 65) 

Coox-OLIvER House, Salem, 
Mass., cornice exhibited, 234 
CooKING UTENSILS, see Metal- 

work 
CopLey, JOHN SINGLETON, painter, 
166; miniatures exhibited, 161; 
portraits exhibited, 160, 161 
Copper, see Metalwork 


CorpincLty, Witi1am W., roof 
treatment, Vill 

CornELIus, CHARLES O., 227 
(note) 


CoRNELL, GIDEON, house, 90 

Cortmore, THomas, Charlestown, 
Mass., inventory (1645), 71 

Corron, Rey. Joun, Boston, in- 
ventory, 48, 71 

Corrons, see Upholstery 

CouRTYARD, 259 

Cox, Josepu, N. Y., upholsterer, 
advertisement, 124 

CRADLES, see Furniture 

Craic, Henry, 226 


Craicige HOUSE, Cambridge, 
Mass., secretary, 131 (fig. 58), 
158 


Crayons, see Drawings 

CromMMELIN, ROBERT, advertise- 
ment, 97 

CROWNINSHIELD, Capt. 
MIN, Salem, Mass., 228 


BEnjA- 


TONG D Bex 


Cupsoarp ciotus, see Upholstery 

Cuppoarps, see Architecture; Fur- 
niture 

Curtains, see Upholstery 

Cusutons, see Upholstery 

Custis, GEORGE WASHINGTON 
ParkE, quoted, 161, 162, 175 

Custis, Netty, silhouette por- 
trait exhibited, 242 


D 


Damasks, see Upholstery 

DANCING, 174- 

Davenport, Rev. Joun, 8 

Davis, Wrtt1am, Boston, clock- 
maker, 48 

Day-seps, see Furniture: Couches 

Decatur, CoMMODORE STEPHEN, 
in Tripolitan war, 220; portrait 
exhibited, 256 

Decoration, see Architecture; 
Furniture; Metalwork; etc. 


Depuam, Mass., 48; meeting- 
house, 68 
DeEERFIELD, Mass., door from 


Sheldon house reproduced, 74 

pE Forest, Henry, 116 

pE Forest, Roserr W. AnD 
Mrs. Rosert W., gift of Ameri- 
can Wing, vil; facade, 259 

DE Forest, Mrs. Rosertr W., gift 
of Woodbury room, 94; see also 
de Forest, Robert W. and Mrs. 

De Lancs; Dr. 2) acon oe 
inventory (1685), 28, 58 

Detrr, see Pottery and Porcelain 
(Dutch and English) 

Dersy (Elias H.) House, Salem, 
Mass., 253 

Dersy (Richard) Houses, Boston, 
245 

DerBY WARE, see Pottery and 
Porcelain (English) 

Desicn, see Architecture; Furni- 
ture;\ete. 

Desicn Books, see Architecture; 
Furniture 

Desks, see Furniture 


Nar bok J 


Dices, Witi1aM, N. Y., pewterer, 
138 

DisHEs, 37, 56, 57-59 (figs. 33- 
35), 140; see also Metalwork; 
Pottery and Porcelain 

Door HARDWARE, see Metalwork 

Doors, see Architecture 

Doorways, see Architecture 

DorBELlL, artist, view of Federal 
Hall) 932 

Dow, GeEorcE FRANcis, reproduc- 
tions, vill 

Draper, RicHarp, Boston, Mass., 
advertisement, 97 

Drawincs, crayons by Copley, 
166; crayons by Saint-Mémin, 
239; workshop of Duncan Phyfe, 
203 (he. 97), 224 

Drowne, SHEM, silversmith, beak- 
er, $7 (fig. 32) 

DunsBar, manufacturer, wall-pa- 
per, 165 

Dupre, AucustINn, medalist, 250 

Dutcu East Inp1a Company, 38 

Duycxinex, G., N. Y., painter, 
advertisement, 170; quoted, 138 


E 


EAGLE DESIGN in American art, 
217-210,,-0n ‘clocks, 220,” 256; 
on furniture, 213-216, 256; on 
glass, 216; on Lowestoft, 2265, 
229, 256; on metalwork, 216, 
949.) 9¢6;-0n mitrots, 216; on 
paneling, 256 

Eacie House, Haverhill, rooms 
exhibited, 236, 249 

Easton, Fairfield Co., Conn., 259 

Eaton, GovERNOR THEOPHILUS, 
inventory (1659), 8, 34, 35; 
38 

Eaton House, New Haven, 8 

ELEcTRICITY, experiments, 168 

ELIzABETHAN STYLE, survival in 
early American art, 4, 10, 71 

Empury, Aymar, Early American 
Churches, 66 (note) 

Empress or Cutna, ship, 229, 230 

ENGRAVINGS, see Prints 


ae 

Epes, Cotone Francis, Henrico 
Co., Va., inventory (1678), 35 

Erie CANnaL, 233 

Essex, Josepu, clockmaker, 50 


F 


Fasrics, see Upholstery - 

FaneuIL, Peter, Boston, furnish- 
ings, 126;\ garden, 121 (note); 
inventory, 153 

FEDERAL Hatt, N. Y., view, 232 

Fietp, RoBert, miniaturist, work 
exhibited, 232 

FIRE ORDINANCES, 6 

FIREPLACES AND THEIR EQUIP- 
MENT, see Architecture; Metal- 
work 

FIRE SCREENS, see Furniture; Me- 
talwork 

F'irzHUGH FAMILY, 180 

FirzHuGH, WILLIAM, first owner of 
Marmion, quoted, 179 

FLacons, see Metalwork: Silver 

FLoor coveRINGs, see Upholstery 

FLoors, see Architecture 


Fotcer, Timotuy, Nantucket, 
merchant, portrait exhibited, 
160 


Foorstoo.s, see Furniture 

Franco-AMERICAN diplomatic dif- 
ficulties, 215 

FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN, 254; anec- 
dote, 20; house furnishings, 88, 
129, 134; medal designed by, 
250; portraits exhibited, 233, 
246; portrait-statuette by A. 
Wood, 254; printed figure on 
textile, 253; quoted, 250; rela- 
tions with Washington, 187 

FrankLin, Gov. WILLIAM, cur- 
tains copied for Philadelphia 


room, Igo 
FRANKLIN STOVE, advertised, 136 
FRASER, CHARLES, miniaturist, 


work exhibited, 232 
Fuitron, RoBERT, 242 
FurnIsHinGs, see Furniture; Glass; 
Metalwork; Pottery and Porce- 
lain; Upholstery; Wall-paper 


274 


ip RI ome.4 


FURNITURE 
General: correspondence with ar- 


chitectural woodwork, 158; 
determination of prove- 
nance, g (note); distinc- 
tion between high quality 
and provincial work, 4, 47, 
106, 120; English styles in 
the Colonies, 4, 9 (note), 46, 
108, 120, 185; relation to 
other arts, xx, 158 


Cabinet-makers, 115, 117, 


1Gc, 214, 2126227 


Construction: rectangular, 10, 


40;. 44, ©97,-.superseded; 
116; stiles and rails, 14, 17, 
69; structural curves, 44, 
46, 92, 97, 106, 116, super- 
seded, 204; block-front, bow 
and serpentine, 114, 166; 
Adam style, 204; classic 
order, 204; geometrical fig- 
ures, 204 


Decoration: appliqué, 14, 


69; carving, 10-22, 44-47, 
6g, 80, 108, 114, 116, 209, 
227, 246; chamfering, 10, 
14, 22; classic” orderje 204; 
eagle design, 213-216, 256; 
fancy design, 236; inlay, 
110,% £08,200, 5,20G0 260; 
japanning (or lacquer-paint- 
ing) 485 L22,.1165108,.170; 
moulding, 10, 14, 16, 22, 
47, 69, 209, 245; painting 
and staining sila olga. 
48, 84, 97, 209, 234, 2533 
pattern books, 108, 206, 
248; silhouetting, 10, 18; 
turning, 10-22, 44-47, 69, 
116, 158, 209; types of leg 
and «foot, 44-409 92) 797, 
106, 108, 110, 115, 158, 168, 
204, 207, 245; veneering, 
46, 49. 192, 108s2200,00.25 


Foreign influences, 39, 44, 


46, (O55 O2;.40 Tee bid geo, 
Chinese, 107, 114; Dutch, 


97; Flemish, 44, 92, 973 


French, 46, 188, 209, 226, 
245; Oriental, 39, 44, 48, 
114; Portuguese, 44, 92; 
Spanish, 44, 92 


Pattern books, 108, 206, 248 
Styles: 


1st Period: Gothic, xix, 
10, 12, 24, 99, 1143 Eliza- 
bethan, 4, 10, 14, 475 
Jacobean, 4; William and 
Mary, 42-47 

ad Period: baroque and 
rococo, XIX, 99, 104, 114, 
116, 158, 168, 197; cabri- 
ole, 106, 110, 158, 168, 
188; Chippendale, 108, 
114, 183, 188 

3rd Period: classical (late 
Roman), xix, 204; Adam, 
198, 204, 206, 239; Hep- 
plewhite, 206, 213, 249; 
Sheraton, “207,529 .9a27, 
236, 239, 245, 249, 256; 
blending of Sheraton with 
Hepplewhite, 207, 213, 
226; Directory, 227; Em- 
pire, 209, 226, 227; Neo- 


Greek, 210; Duncan 
Physcr2a7 
Woods used: 


Ist Period: 24, 46, 47, 69, 
71, 92, 97; as basis for 
attribution, g (note) 

ad--Period: 110,116,221, 
157, 168, 188 

3rd Period: 209, 212, 239; 


249 


By Period 


1st Period: early style, xviii, 


g-24, exhibited, 69, 77, 80, 
illustrated, figs. 1-18, 39- 
41; transition style, 40, 43, 
46-48, exhibited, 84, 88, 92, 
g7, illustrated, figs. 20-28, 
42-46 


ad Period: xix, 104-122, ex- 


hibited, 157 — 190,  illus- 
trated, figs. 46-62, 73-78 


INDEX oN 


ard. Period: xix, 198, 204- 
220, change in style, .209, 
210, exhibited, 208, 226, 
227, 234, 239, 245, 249, 
266, illustrated, figs. 79-92, 
98-107 

By Form 

Becomes, 100, 112, 122, 
208, 253; placed in parlors, 
122 

Benches, see Forms 

Bookcase-secretaries, seé 
Desks and Secretaries. 

Brackets, 158 

Buffets, see Sideboards and 
Buffets 

Cabinets, see Cupboards 

Chairs, 17-20, 43, 445 48, 
107-110, 120, 208, 209, 236, 
exhibited.) 69, 88, 93,.97, 
158, 168, 178, 183, 188, 208, 
236, 245, illustrated, figs. 
geal eoe 2s 27-28. 49-50, 
54, 83-86; types: banister 
back, 44; Brewster, 18; 
cabriole legs, 92, 106, 108, 
IIo, 168, 188; caned, 44, 
OglOje carver, 18, 70; 
crested, 44, 107, 109; fancy, 
236; Flemish foot, 44; Flem- 
ish scroll, 44; Hepplewhite, 
207-209; India’ back, 93; 
open back, 17, 158, 183, 
208, 245; painted and lac- 
quered, 48, 236; rocking, 
236; Sheraton, 208, 236, 
239, 245; shield back, 208; 
Slatibackesi7,, 18, 69; 84; 
Spanish foot, 44, 92; splat 
BuckeueiG7.. 170; turned 
spindle, 17, 18, 69; vase 
back, 107, 245; violin back, 
To7-ewainscot, 17, 43, 69; 
Windsor, 18, 120 

Chandeliers (wood), 158; see 
also Glass; Metalwork: 
Brass 

Chests, 12, exhibited, 69, 78, 
84, painted and lacquered, 


84, illustrated, 11 (fig. 1), 
13 (fig. 2) 

Chests of drawers, origin and 
development, 14, 43, 106, 
Diss Mex DIteuse00, 
88, 208, 253, illustrated, 13 
(fig. 2); see also Highboys 

Chests-on-chests, 112, 115, 
illustrated, 205 (fig. 81) 

Clocks, 48, 115, japanned, 
16, 170.8 exhibited,-166, 
LOD .sal Jos 100, 6220.02 36, 
249, 266, illustrated, 129 
(fig. 57), 215 (fig. 89) 

Couches, illustrated, 47 (fig. 
26) 

Cradles, exhibited, 71, illus- 
trated, 33 (fig. 18) 

Cupboards: court, 15, 43, ex- 
hibited, 80, illustrated, 17 
(fig. 6); livery, 15; press, 15, 
69, 78, 171, illustrated, 16 
(fig. 5); kas, 97 

Day-beds, see Couches 

Desks and secretaries: desk- 
boxes, 16, 43, 69, exhibited, 
81, illustrated, 14 (fig. 3), 
1% (hig. 4); desks, 43, 106, 
908; 263, illustrated, 43 
(fips 29), 106 (ho. ©1):-2%4 
(fig) 88)3. secretaries, 112, 
LiGe 14 6,0)100;.2208, illus- 
trated a3 lee fe 50) ,e08 75 
(fig. 59), 203 (fig. 80) 

Fire-screens, 208 

Foot-stools, 208 

Forms, 12, 20,.43 

Girandoles, 217 (fig. 91) 

Highboys, origin and devel- 
opment; 41555 43, < 94,.-106, 
110, Japanned, 168, parlor- 
pieces, 190, valuation, 
170; exhibited,169,. 84, 92, 
TIOSEL OC Loos st OOtmUS. 
trated, 19a fie. 2) eat ig: 
21) og (fiy.©46). e125 (hg. 


Kases, see Cupboards 
Looking-glasses and mirrors, 


i) 
~] 
ON 


japanned, 112, painted glass 
panels, 208, 216-220, 228; 
exhibited, 88, 94, 97, 171, 
178, 183, 220, Piste Wale 
illustrated, 135 (figs. 60- 
62), 217 (figs. go-92) 
Lowboys, origin and develop- 
ment, 43, 106, 110, 112; 
exhibited, 88, 92, 97, 168; 
illustrated, 40 (fig. 20), 105 
(fig. 46), 107 (fig. 47) 
Scrutoires and secretaries, see 
Desks and secretaries 
Settles and settees, 78, 168, 
208; see also Sofas 
Sideboards (buffets), “beau- 
fatt,” 96; sideboard, ori- 
gin, 204, exhibited, 239, il- 
lustrated, 201 (fig. 79) 
Sofas, exhibited, 188, 245, il- 
lustrated, 109 (fig. 48), 206 
(fig. 82) 
Spinning-wheel, exhibited, 88 
Stands, see Tables and stands 
Stools, 20, 208; exhibited, 70; 
illustrated, 25 (fig. 12) 
Tables and stands, 20, 22, 110; 
exhibited, 70, 71, 84, 88, 
178, 183, 186, 208; illus- 
trated, figs. 13-17, 52, 535 
56, 79, 87; types: breakfast, 
239; butterfly, 22, 71, 345 
card, 112, 183, 208; chair, 
24; dining, 112, 178, 208, 
239; dressing, 253; drop- 
leaf, 112, 178; gate-leg, 22, 
70, 845 kettle-stand, 110; 
mixing, 239, _ illustrated, 
201 (fig. 79); pier, 112, 178, 
183, 186, 188; rectangular, 
22; side, 112, 204; tea, 110, 
188, 208; tip-top, 110, 1785 
tray-top, 110; trestle, 20, 705 
tripod 178 


G 


Gapssy, Joun, Alexandria, Va., 
tavern-keeper, 162, 172; adver- 
tisement, 174 


TEN DIE XS 


Gapssy’s TAVERN, Alexandria, 
Va., ballroom exhibited, 172, 
173 (fig. 76); mantelpiece ex- 
hibited, 161, 163 (fig. 74) 
GAMBLING, 174 
GARDEN COURTYARD, 259 
Garpens, Bowler house, 90; fa- 
mous Colonial gardens, 121 
(note) 
Garpiner, Henry, Wandsworth, 
Surrey, printed linen, 253 (note) 
Gautier, Anprew, N. Y., chair- 
maker, advertisement, 121 
Georce III, Kine, portrait, 171; 
presentation of Samuel Powel. 
184 
GerrisH, metalworker, 
stand exhibited, 94 
Gispons, Mayor-GenerAL Ep- 
WARD, inventory (1654), 25, 28, 
36 
Gisss, Architecture in Sheets, 104 
GIRANDOLES, see Furniture 
GLAss 
ist Period: imported: English 
and Venetian, 39, 59, 6° 

ad Period: American: New Jer- 
sey, 144, illustrated, 149 (fig. 
69); Stiegel, 130, 144, exhibit- 
ed, 257, illustrated, 151 (fig. 
70), 153 (fig. 71); Wistar, 1445 
prints on glass, 153; imported: 
English, 144; lustres, 194 

3rd Period: American: 223; 
moulded glass, exhibited, 221 
(fig. 95), 223, 2573 painted mir- 
rors, 208, 216-220 (figs. go- 
g2); portraits on glass, 232; 
imported: English cut glass, 
223; lustres, 223; see also 
Architecture: Windows; Fur- 
niture: Looking-glasses 

Govparp, Joun, Newport, R. 1., 
block-front furniture, 115; eXx- 


hibited, 133 (fig. 59), 166 


candle- 


Gortet, Pup, N. Y., silver- 
smith, 142 
GoopricH, SARAH, miniaturist, 


work exhibited, 232 


IBN EX: o19 a 


GoopyEar, Governor, New Hay- 
en, inventory (1658), 35 

GoruHic ArT, influence on Ameri- 
can art, Ist Period, xix, 10, 66; 
architecture, 10, 66; furniture, 
eyet 2.24) (figs. |1—18)5 super- 
seded by baroque, 99-100 

GouLp, JupGE JAMEs, portrait ex- 
hibited, 232 

Goutp, Mrs. James, portrait ex- 
hibited, 232 

Great Brirain, diplomatic trou- 
bles, 216; War of 1812, 216 

Greece, war with Turkey, 177 

GREEK ART, influence on early 
XIX century art, 210 

GREEN, VALENTINE, painter, prints 
exhibited, 233, 253 

GREENE, NATHANAEL, miniature 
by C. W. Peale, exhibited, 161 

GREENLEAF, Mary Brown, por- 
trait exhibited, 161 

GreENLEAF, Hon. WILLIAM, por- 
trait exhibited, 161 

Grecson, THomas, New Haven, 
inventory (1646), 27 

GuIL_eT, Paris, wall-paper manu- 
facturer, 234 


H 


Harrctorus, see Upholstery 

HAtts, see Architecture 

Hatsey, R. T. H., arrangement of 
American collection, vii 

Hamers.y, Tuomas, N. Y., silver- 
smith, work, 143 (fig. 66) 

HamMILton, ALEXANDER, name on 
emblematic mirrors, 219; por- 
trait exhibited, 232; quoted as 
Secretary of Treasury, 212, 222 

Hampton, N. H., bedroom of farm 
house (c. 1725) exhibited, 85 

Hancock, Joun, President of Ist 
Continental Congress, 164 

Hancock, Tuomas, Boston, ad- 
vertisement, 62; quoted, 164; 
garden, 121 (note) 

Harsy, Peter, N. Y., pewterer, 
138 


Harpware, see Metalwork 

HarrateeEns, see Upholstery 

Harr House, Ipswich, Mass., 
reproduction: 73, 78; exhibited, 
79 (fig. 41) 

Hartrorp, Conn., 81; armor man- 
ufacture, 37 

HarvarD Coutece (c. 1726), 62, 


Haucan, Mrs. Joun, advertise- 
ment, 98 

HaveruiLt, Mass., rooms exhib- 
ited, 221, 246, 249 

HeEtp, J. Extas, painter, 246 

Henrico County, Va., 35 

HEPPLEWHITE AND Co., furniture 
designers, publications, 206- 
207; astylc, 213.220) 00407—ex- 
hibited, 209 (fig. 84) 

HERCULANEUM EXCAVATIONS, in- 
fluence on art, 197 

HeEwLett, Joun, 94 

HEwLetr House, Woodbury, L. 
I., 94; exhibited, 95 (fig. 45) 

Hrssins, ANNE, inventory (1656), 
26 

Hicusoys, see Furniture 

Hincuam, Mass., Old Ship Meet- 
ing-House, 66 

Hocarrn, WILLIAM, prints, 154; 
drapery in prints, 126 

Homewoop, Baltimore, Md., 
woodwork reproduced, 226, 231 
(fig. 98) 

Horswe tt, Wit.1aM, N. Y., pew- 
terer, 138 

How, JosepH, Lynn, Mass., in- 
ventory (1651), 39 

Howarp, Martin, bill for dam- 
ages, 170 

Hupson-Futtron Exuisirion, vii 

Hutt, Commopore Isaac, por- 
trait exhibited, 256. 

Hutt, Joun, Boston, silversmith 
and mintmaster, 32; caudle- 
cup exhibited, 32 

Hunt, Epurarim, Windsor, Conn., 
inventory (1644), 39 


oat 


Hunter Cottecrion, Stiegel glass, 


144 (note), 257 
Hurp, Jacos, Boston, silversmith, 
teapot, 63 (fig. 37) 


Hurcuinson, ANNE, 86, 89 


I 


ILLusTRATIONS, List oF, XI 

ImLtay House, Allentown, N. J., 
wall-paper exhibited, 253 

Inprans, Conn. River Valley, 81; 
Narragansett, 89 

Inman, Henry, miniaturist, work 
exhibited, 232 

INTRODUCTION, XVil 

Inventories, books containing, 8 
(note); for individual invento- 
ries, see name of owner 

Ipswicu, Mass., Hart house, 73, 
78; exhibited, 79 (fig. 41) 

Iron, see Metalwork 

IsHam, Norman M., restorations, 
vill 


J 


JACOBEAN STYLE, survival in early 
American art, 4, 19 (fig. 7), 71 

JACQUEMART ET BENARD, paper- 
makers, work exhibited, 248 

JAPANNERS, prints for, 170 

JEFFERSON, THOMAS, 202 (note), 
227; quoted, 252 

Jouns Hopxins UNIversiry, 238 

Jounson, Epwarb, quoted, 25, 73 

Jonnson, THomas, Boston, en- 
gravings exhibited, 64, 85 

Jones, [yIGo, 100 

Jones, Sir Wrxi1am, motto for 
American medal, 252 

JoURNEYMEN CABINET AND CHAIR 
Makers’ New-York Book of 
Prices, quoted, 212 

Jumet, Me., quoted, 244 

Junius, LETTERS OF, 195 

Just, JosepH, upholsterer, 28 


kK 
Kam, Perer, quoted, 96, 153 
Kas, see Furniture 


oN Dene x 


Key, Francis Scott, anecdote of 
Star Spangled Banner, 237 

Kipp, Caprain, inventory (1701), 
56 

KimsaLL, Fiske, Domestic Archi- 
tecture, 200 (note); Thomas Jef- 
ferson, 202 (note) 

Kip, see Woodward and Kip 

Knox, GENERAL HENRY, 229; 
cup and saucer exhibited, 230 


L 


“Lapy’s ADIEU TO HER TEA- 
TABLE, 101 

LarayeTre, Marquis DE, associa- 
tions with Gadsby’s Tavern, 
172, 176, 177; popularity, 218 
(note) 

Lamps, see Lighting 

Lanterns, see Lighting 

La Tour pu Pin, Marquise de, 
quoted, 218 (note) 

Laurens, Henry, 2d president of 
Continental Congress, mezzotint 
exhibited, 233 

Lawns, see Upholstery 

Leason, GEorRGE, dyer, 51 

Leatuers, see Upholstery 

Les, (Jeremiah) House, Marble- 
head, Mass., wall-paper, 130 

Lee, Rosert E., association with 
Gadsby’s Tavern, 176 

Lexy, Sir Perer, painting valued, 
170 

Lenpers, List OF, V 

Le Roux, Joun, New York, silver- 
smith, teapot, 63 (fig. 38) 

Lestiz, Georce WILLocks, Ja- 
maica, L. I., inventory (1774), 
1g! 

Lewis, CoLtoneL FIELDING, 180 

Lewis, Georce, nephew of Wash- 
ington, at Marmion, 180 

“Liperty TREE” as design, 253 

LipvELL, Josep, N. Y., pewterer, 
138 

Licutinc: Ist Period, 36, 56, 78; 
ad Period, 137, 138, 158, 1945 
3rd Period, 223, 228, 242; by 


iN DLE Xx 


betty-lamps, 36, 37 (fig. 19), 78; 
by candles in candlesticks, 36, 
56, 78, 88, 136, 137, 138, 2285 by 
oil lamps (other than betty- 
lamp), 56, 137, 242; by lanterns 
for whale oil, 78, 137; by rush 
lights, 36, 78; by sconces, chan- 
deliers, lustres, 136, 158, 171, 
178, 194, 22 

Linens, see Upholstery 

Livincsron, Mrs. Epwarp (née 
Mary Mclvers), anecdote, 195 

Livincston, Joun R., N. Y., 
quoted, 240 

Livineston, Rosert R., Secretary 
for Foreign Affairs, 250 

LospELL, Francis, gift, 259 

Locan, JAMES, mansion, 168 

Lone Istanp, 38; see also St. 
Georges; Shelter Island; Wood- 
bury 

LookING-GLAssEs, see Furniture 

LortTery, 128 

Lowsoys, see Furniture 

Lowesrtort, see Pottery and Porce- 
lain 

Lustres, see Lighting 

Lynn, Mass., 39 


M 


Macau ay, Mrs. CATHARINE, his- 
torian, statuette in Chelsea- 
Derby, 195 

McHenry, Forr, 237 

McIntire, SAMUEL, Salem, cor- 
nice exhibited, 235 (fig. 99); fig- 
ures on chest attributed to, 205 
(fig. 81), 253; plans for houses, 
234, 254 

Matpone, Epwarp G., miniatur- 
ist, work exhibited, 232 

MANNHEIM, Pa., Stiegel house, 130 

ManTeELpieces, see Architecture 

Maps AND PROSPECTS, 42, 60, 61, 
G2 e314 o6, bath (fig. 72), 192 
(note) 

MarBLEHEAD, Mass., Lee house, 
130 


Marmion, King Georce Co., 


279 


Virginia, room exhibited, 179, 
181 (fig. 77) 

MaryLanb, see Oriole 

Mason, Davin, japanner, adver- 
tisement, 168 

Mason nouse, Virginia, Chinese 
room referred to, 192 

MassacuuseEtTts, see Boston; Cam- 


bridge; Dedham; Deerfield; 
Haverhill; Hingham; Ipswich; 
Lynn; Marblehead; Salem; 


Topsfield; Watertown 
Marner, Corron, mezzotint por- 
trait, 64 
Marrresses, see Upholstery 
Mayuew, Rev. JONATHAN, quoted, 
196 
MEDALS AND MEDALLIONS, patri- 
otic, 250 
Mentuorn, Putip, N. Y., inven- 
tory (1728), 28 
Mercer, GENERAL Huecu, death, 
180 
MERCHANT MARINE, 30, 52, 89, 
210, 220, 228, 246 
METALWORK 
Ist Period: 30-36, 52-57; ar- 
rangement, 78 
Brass, 30; cooking utensils, 
56; fireplace equipment, 35, 
56; lighting equipment, 36, 
56; candlestick by Gerrish 
exhibited, 94 
Copper, utensils, 56 
Iron, 30; cooking utensils, 56; 
fireplace equipment, 35, 56; 
lighting equipment, 36, 
illustrated, 37 (fig. 19); 
candlestick by Gerrish ex- 
hibited, 94 
Pewter, 30, 34, 56, exhibited, 
she 7251 8a 
Silver, 30-34, 52-56, exhib- 
ited, 32, 72, 94, 257, illus- 
trated, figs. 29-38; Fitzhugh 
plate, 179-180; silversmiths, 
29, §9-55* special pieces 
exhibited: baptismal basin 
by van der Spiegel, 61 





(hovee36);)* beaker = bys |: 
Boelen, 52 (fig. 29); beaker 
by S. Drowne, 57 (fig. 32); 
bowl, two-handled, by J. 
Boelen, 58 (fig. 34); caudle- 
cup by Hull and Sanderson, 
2; currency by Hull and 
Sanderson, 32; inkstand by 
J. Cony, 54, 55 (fig. 31); 
porringer by J. Cony, 57 
(fig. 33); porringer, cov- 
ered, 59 (fig. 35); tankard 
byaP.- Vane Dyckies3 ais: 
30); tankards, XVII cen- 
tury group, 72; teapot by J. 
Hurd; 3) (hg.037)3" teapot 
by J. le Roux, 63 (fig. 38) 
Steel (arms and armor), 36, 
57; exhibited, 36 
9d Period: 184-136," 138143, 


156 

Brass, fireplace equipment, 
136; lighting equipment, 
136, 171, 173,183 

Iron, fireplace equipment, 


134, exhibited, 184, 106; 
lighting equipment, 134 
Pewter, 138-140; pewterers, 


138 
Sheffield plate, 142 
Silver, 140-143, exhibited, 


168, “1600166, 255, alluse 
trated, figs. 63-68; silver- 
smiths, 142, 158; special 
pieces exhibited: chocolate 
pot by E. Winslow, 139 
(fig. 63); punch bowl by 
Paul Revere, Jr., 145 (fig. 
67), other pieces by Paul 
Revere, 158; salver by T. 
Hamersly, 143 (fig. 66); 
teaboard belonging to 
Washington, 143; teapot 
by Jie Pintopiaat Where): 
pieces by Samuel Vernon, 


166 
ard Period7222 
Brass, fireplace equipment, 


216, 222: illustrated, 218 


TaN gD SEX 


(fig. 93); spread eagle de- 
sign, 216, 218 (fig. 93), 252 
Bronze, exhibited, 242 
Pewter, 222 
Sheffield plate, 222 
Silver, 222, exhibited, 257. 
special pieces exhibited: 
candelabra (1790) from Car- 
lisle house, 242; pieces by 
Paul Revere, Jr, 2igmne: 
94), 222-223 
MezzorTinTs, see Prints 
MICHELANGELO, 99 
MILLSTONES, 259 
MINIATURES, I61, 225, 232 
MInsHULL, carver and gilder, ad- 
vertisement, 160 
Mirrors, see Furniture 
MiscutanzA, Philadelphia,  de- 
scribed, 194 
MIXING-TABLES, see Furniture 
Morratr House, Portsmouth, 
N. H.., curtains, 126 
Mouairs, see Upholstery 
Montacu, Lapy Mary Worr- 
LEY, quoted, 194 
Moore, BENJAMIN, 
(1785), 191 
Moore, Rosert, architect, room 
exhibited, 244, illustrated, 243 
(fig. 101) 
More, ALEXANDER, upholsterer, 
28 
Moreens, see Upholstery 
Morris, Rosert,  wall-paper, 
gl 
Morris, SAMUEL, quoted, 185 
Morse, S. F. B., portrait of his 
daughter exhibited, 233 
Morton, GENERAL, 228 
Morton, JoHN, advertisement 
ee 
Mounr VERNON, name, 148; fur- 
nishings, 187 
Mutts, see Upholstery 
Munn, Cuarces ALLEN, bequest, 
64, 232, 253, 2573 room, 254— 
256, illustrated, 255 (fig. 104) 
Musuins, see Upholstery 





inventory 


Ln Nt ORG 4 


N 


Neat, Davin, History of New 
England (1720), 50 

NEALE AND Co., Hanley, Eng., 
potters, work exhibited, 246 

NEEDLEWORK, see Upholstery 

Neo-GRrEEK SsTYLF, influence on 
early XIX century art, 210 

New EncGLanp, contribution to 
early American art, 3; History, 
by Neal, 50; silversmiths, 32, 
54, 166; see also Boston; Bristol; 
Cambridge; Conn. River Valley; 
Dedham; Deerfield; Hampton; 
Hartford; Haverhill; Hingham; 
Ipswich; Lynn; Marblehead; 
New Haven; Newington; New- 
port; Portsmouth, N. H.; Ports- 
mouth, R. I.; Topsfield; Water- 
town; Windsor 

New Encianp Courant, Boston, 
advertisement, 62 

New HampsuHire, see Hampton; 
Portsmouth 

New Haven, Conn., 35; Eaton 
house, 8; Gregson house, 27 

New Jersey, glass-makers, 149 
(fig. 69); see also Allentown 

New York Ciry, Beekman house, 
Turtle Bay, 157; cabinet-mak- 
ce ite oe.e Brinner, . 117, 
Phyfe, workshop, 223 (fig. 97), 
29.4-902%,-pieces exhibited, 212 
(fig. 86), 213 (fig. 87); fireback, 
196; punch bowl of Chinese 
Lowestoft given to City in 1812, 
228; silversmiths, 55, 142; views: 
prospect (1721) exhibited, 42, 
62; map (1653), exhibited, 81; 
view of Federal Hall, 232; 
view on and inside punch bowl 
(1812), 228; views on Stafford- 
shire ware, 230 

New York GaAzeTrTe, advertise- 
mienhts.) 7,124, 128, 154, 155, 
168, 170 

New York Historica SOCIETY, 
Beekman mantel, 157 


281 


New York JourRNAL, advertise- 
ment, 121 and note, 194, 196 

New York Mercury, advertise- 
ment, 160 

New York Stare, see Long 
Island; New York City; Utica 

NewinctTon, Conn., room ex- 
hibited, 81, 83 (fig. 42) 

Newport, R. I., merchant ship- 
ping, 89; furniture and _ silver 
exhibited, 166; see also Goddard, 
John; Vernon, Samuel 

NEWSPAPER-READING, 61 

Nint, JEAN BapTisTE, terracotta 
manufacturer, work, 253 

Nok , Garrat, advertisement, 160 


O 


Ocracon, THE, Washington, D. C., 
cornice reproduced, 226, 231 
(fig. 98) 

OELLER’S 
176 

“Op IRoNSIDES,” as design, 249 

Oxp Suip Meetinc-Howse, Hing- 
ham, Mass., roofing copied, vii, 
66-68 (fig. 39) 

OncLeBaGH, GARRETT, New York, 
silversmith, 55 

Ori0LE, Somerset Co., Md., room, 
166; fireplace cupboards, 238 

Oscoop, SAMUEL, portrait ex- 
hibited, 233 

Oscoop, Mrs. SAMUEL, portrait 


exhibited, 233 


Hore, 


Philadelphia, 


P 


Pain, JAMES, books on architec- 
ture, 203 
Parn, Wiii1AM, books on archi- 
tecture, 104, 203 
PaInTED CANVASES, see Upholstery 
PainTED FABRICS, see Upholstery 
Paintincs, American 
1st Period: 60; portraits ex- 
hibited, 72, 85 
ad Period: 156; miniatures ex- 
hibited, 161; portraits ex- 


282 


hibited, 160, 171, 179; wall- 
decoration, 182 
3rd Period: 225; miniatures 
exhibited, 232; portraits ex- 
hibited, 232, 233, 256 
PAPER MONEY, 54 
PATRIOTIC ORNAMENT, 213-2215 
on ceramics, 225, 229, 256; on 


clocks, 220, 236, 249, 256; on’ 


furniture, 213-216, 256; on 
glass, 216-218, 252; on metal- 
work, 216, 252, 256; on mirrors, 
216; on textiles, 220, 250, 252, 
256; on paneling, 256 

PaTRIOTIC PRINTS, see Prints 

PAVEMENT, 227 

Paxton, CHARLES, 
ventory (1746), 93 

PEALE, CHARLES WILLSON, artist, 
miniatures exhibited, 161; por- 
traits exhibited, 171, 193, 233; 
256 

PEALE, JAMES, artist, miniatures 
exhibited, 161 

PEALE, REMBRANDT, artist, por- 
trait exhibited, 256 

PELHAM, Henry, letter to, quoted, 
152 

PELHAM, PETER, Boston, 64; en- 
graved portrait of Sir William 
Pepperell, 191 

PEMBERTON, JOHN, 184 

Penn, WILLIAM, 254 

PENNSYLVANIA, glass-makers, 151 
(fig: 7o), 153 (fig. 71); potters, 
221 (fig. 96); see also Carlisle; 
Mannheim; Philadelphia 

PENNSYLVANIA CHRONICLE, adver- 
tisement, 130, 182, 192 

PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE, adver- 
tisement, 138 

PEPPERELL, Str WILLIAM, Kittery, 
Maine, portrait engraved by 
Pelham, exhibited, 94, 190; 
quoted, 130; upholstery, 191 

Pepys, SAMUEL, quoted, 26 

Perry, OLIVER Hazarp, 256 

PreTEeRSBURG, Va., room exhibited, 
244; illustrated, 243 (fig. 101). 


Boston, in- 


TIEN DU EPX 


Pewrer, see Metalwork 

PHILADELPHIA, Pa., cabinet-miak- 
ers, 188; examples, 109 (fig. 48), 
111 (fig. 49), 113 (fig. 50), 123 
(fig. 54), 125 (fig. §5), 127 (fig. 
56), 129 (fig. 57), 168, 183, 188; 
room from Powel house exhib- 
ited, 183-196 (fig. 78); wood- 
work from 237 S. Third St. 
exhibited, 254-255 (fig. 104) 

PHILADELPHIA AMERICAN WEEKLY 
MESSENGER, advertisement, 122 

Puipps, Str WILLIAM, inventory 
(1696), 35 

Puyre, Duncan, N. Y., cabinet- 
maker, 227 (and note); furni- 
ture exhibited, 227; illustrated, 
212 (fig. 86), 213 (fig. 87); shop, 
224, illustrated, 223 (fig. 97) 

P1azzas, 121 (note) 

Piercy, Capt., Alexandria, Va., 
162 

PIERPONT, JAMES, 
JAMES, portraits, 85 

PINTARD, JOHN, 233 

Pinto, JosEepu, silversmith, work, 
141 (fig. 65) 

Pirr, Wit.1AM, Earl of Chatham, 
popularity, 193, 194; prints of, 
1£4,- 171, 1923 |portraitenpy 
Charles Willson Peale, 193; seal 
engravings, I94; statuette in 
Chelsea-Derby, 195, 196; por- 
trait on clock-case, 171 

PLastER OF Paris, see Sculpture 


AND Mrs. 


PLate, SHEFFIELD, see Metal- 
work 

Piusues, see Upholstery 
PoMPEIIAN EXCAVATIONS,  1nflu- 


ence on art, 197; influence on 
decoration, 202 

PorceELain, see Pottery and Porce- 
lain 

Porter, Commopore Davib, as- 
sociation with Gadsby’s Tavern, 
176 

Porticogs, see Architecture 

Porto BELLO, 148 

Porrraltrs, see Paintings 


PaNa ie Po Xx 


PortrsmouTH, N. H., Moffatt 
house, curtains, 126 
PortsmoutTH, R. I., 62, 89; Bowler 
house, 89, 91 (fig. 44) 
Porrery AND PoRCELAIN 
Ist Period: imported, 37, 58: 
Chinese porcelain, 38, 58, 
exhibited, 72, 81; Dutch 
pottery (Delft), 38, 59, ex- 
hibited, 72, 94, 98, Scripture 
tiles exhibited, 94, 96; English 
wares, 38, 58, exhibited, 72, 98 
ad Period: American, glazed 
earthenware, slipware, stone- 
ware, 145, decoration, 151; 
imported, 146-152: Chinese 
porcelain, 147, exhibited, 171; 
Dutch pottery (Delft), 146; 
English wares, 147-152, ex- 
hibited, 171, 183, 195 
3rd Period: American: pottery, 
Pennsyivania German, 226 
(fig. 96); imported: English 
wares, 224, exhibited, Staf- 
fordshire plates, 230, Wedg- 
wood, 242, 246, basalt 
plaques, Neale & Co., Han- 
ley, 246; French soft paste, 
224; Sino-Lowestoft (Chinese) 
exhibited, 228, 246, 256; 
Oriental porcelains decorated 
in Europe, 230 
PoweEL, SaMueEL, biographical 
notes, 184-187; garden, 121; 
Philadelphia house, room ex- 
hibited, 183-196 (fig. 78) 
PoynTet, WiLu1AM, Philadelphia, 
wall-paper, 253 
Pratt, MarrHew, painter, 186 
Presie, Capt. Epwarp, in Tri- 
politan war, 220 
PREFACE BY THE DIRECTOR, Vii 
PrinTED FABRICS, see Upholstery 
PRINTERS AND DYERS, textiles, see 
Upholstery 
PRINTS 
Ist Period: 42, 60, 61, 62, 64, 85, 
93 


25% 


ode Period eis 2 Ess 170, 1.172, 
192, 193; on glass, 153 
3rd Period: 232, 233, 253 
PRIVATEERS, §2, 89 
Procror, CARDEN, 
advertisement, 116 
Prospects, see Maps and Pros- 


pects 
e 


Quincy, Miss Exiza S., quoted, 
245 


clockmaker, 


R 


RaMaGE, JOHN, miniature painter, 
miniature exhibited, 161 

RANDALL, CapTAIN THOMAS, 229 

Ranpie, Wri1amM, Boston, ja- 
panner, 48 

Rep, JAMES, advertisement, 192 

RENAISSANCE ART, influence on 
American art, Ist Period, com- 
bined with Gothic, 12;  pro- 
vincial expression in Newington 
room, 82; influence on 2d Period, 
xix, 96, 99, 100 

REVERE, PAvt, Jx., Boston, silver- 
smith, mentioned, 118; work 
exhibited, 142, 158, 223, illus- 
trated, 145 (fig. 67), 219 (fig. 94) 

Revere, Mrs. PAvL, miniature of, 
161 

Ruope Isitanp, cabinet-makers, 
Goddard, 115, 133 (fig. 59), 166; 
see also Bristol; Newport; Ports- 
mouth 

Roserts, GEorGE, quoted, 185 

Roserts, NIcHOLas, advertise- 
ment, 58 

Rosinson, R., painter, panels at 
Marmion, 180 

RocxincHamM, Marquis of, prints 
exhibited, 154, 192 

Rococo sTyLe, influence on Amer- 
ican art, 2d Period, xix, 100; 
reaction from, 197 

Rocers, ComMopore, association 
with Gadsby’s Tavern, 176 

Roman art (late period), influ- 
ence on late XVIII century art, 


197 


284 


Roors, see Architecture 

RoosEvELt, JoHN J., advertise- 
ment, 155 

Roux, Anton, Marseilles, ship 
portrait, 249 

Rowe, Joun, London, stationer, 
164 

Ruccies (Samuel) House, Bos- 
ton, Mass., mantel exhibited, 
234 

Rues, see Upholstery: Floor cov- 
erings 

Rusu .icuts, see Lighting 


.) 
SADLER AND GREEN, tile-makers, 
152 
SacE, Mrs. Russexi, gift of 


Bolles Collection, vii, 12 (note) 

Sr. Georces, Suffolk County, 
Pals5 

Sarnt-Mémin, Cuar_es B. J. F. 
DE, artist, biographical note, 
239-240; portraits exhibited, 
239, 240, 242 

Sarnt Méry, Moreau DE, quoted, 
122 

Sr. Paut’s CHapet N, Y., deco- 
ration, 157 

Satem, Mass., Cleopatra’s Barge, 
228; see also Andrew house; 
Cook-Oliver house; Derby 
house 

SALISBURY, STEPHEN, miniature 
of, 161 

SANDERSON, Rosert, silversmith 
and mintmaster, 32; caudie-cup 
exhibited, 32 

SARGENT, Co. Epes, portrait ex- 
hibited, 161 

Sarcent, Mrs. EPs, portrait ex- 
hibited, 161 

Satins, see Upholstery 

Saucatuck River, Conn., mill, 
39) 

SavaGE, EBENEZER, upholsterer, 
28 

SavaGE, Epwarp, Philadelphia, 
artist, portraits exhibited, 233 


TNS Dk Xk 


SavannaH, Ga., 
hibited, 257 

Say cLotus, see Upholstery 

Sconces, see Lighting; Metalwork 

ScRIPTURE TILES, 94, 97 

Scutprure, plaster of Paris, 2d 
Period, 160 

SECRETARIES, see Furniture 

SercEs, see Upholstery 

SETTEES, see Furniture 

SETTLES, see Furniture 

SEWALL, JUDGE SAMUEL, uphol- 
stery, 190 

SEYMOUR, SAMUEL, engraver, view 
of New York, 228 

SHARPLES, JAMES, painter, por- 
traits, 232 

SHaw, AprAHam, Dedham, Mass., 
inventory (1638), 48 

SHAW, CapTAIN SAMUEL, 228-220, 
230 

SHEFFIELD PLATE, see Metalwork 

SHELDON, JouN, door of his Deer- 
field house reproduced, 74 

SHELLEY, Capt. GILES, inventory 
(1718), 59 

SHELTER Istanp, Long Island, 
estate of Henry Silvester, 35 

SHERATON, THOMAS, furniture de- 
signer, publications, 207; style, 
201 (fig. 79), 203 (fig. 80), 206 
(fig. 82), 207 (fig-983) porate: 
85), 226, 227, 236, 238, 239, 245, 
249, 253; 256 

SHIPPING, 30, §2, 89, 210,) 220; 
228, 246; see also Clermont 

SHuTTERS, see Architecture 

SIDEBOARDS, see Furniture 

S1iks, see Upholstery 

Sitver, see Metalwork 

SILVESTER, Henry, Shelter Island, 
N. Y., inventory (1681), 35 

S1ino-LoweEstortT, see Pottery and 
Porcelain 

SLAVE-TRADE, 89 

SMIBERT, JOHN, artist, advertise- 
ments, 152 

SmirH; Cor, WinLiAMye Lae 
inventory (1705), 59 


doorway ex- 


TeNS DAE SX 


SMUGGLING, 94 

Soras, see Furniture 

“Sons oF Liserty,” 170 

SorcE, JoHN JuLius, japanner, 
advertisement, 168 

SouTH CAROLINA GaAzeETTE, ad- 
vertisement, 192 

SPELMAN, Sir Henry, Palladio, 
104 

SPINNING WHEEL, exhibited, 88 

SPREAD EAGLE DESIGN, see Eagle 
design 

STAFFORDSHIRE, see Pottery and 
Porcelain (English) 

Srairs, see Architecture 

Stamp ACT, prints, 154, 185, 192 

STANDING cups, see Metalwork: 
Silver 

Sranbs, see Furniture 


Star SPANGLED BANNER, anec- 
dote, 237 

STEEL, see METALWORK 

STEENWYCK, CorneLis, N. Y., 


inventory (1685), 38 

Srenton, house of James Logan, 
Germantown, Pa., settee, 168 

Stevens, Mrs. Joun, New Jersey, 
bequest to (1756), 128 

SriecGeL, “Baron” Henry WIL- 
LIAM, glass, 144, exhibited, 151 
(fig. 70), 153 (fig. 71), 2573 
parlor at Mannheim, Pa., 130 

Stone, Philadelphia, pewterer, 
advertisement, 140 

Sroots, see Furniture 

Srorrs, Utica, clockmaker, work 
exhibited, 256 

STRYCKER, Jacosus G., artist, 
portrait of Jan Strycker, 72 

SruarT, GILBERT, painter, por- 
traits, Gadsby’s Tavern, 179; 
portraits exhibited, 256 

Srurrs, see Upholstery 

Swan, AsBraHam, British Archi- 
Lech Lod 


18 


TABLE CARPETS, see Upholstery 
TaBLEs, see Furniture 


285 


Tarretas, see Upholstery 

Taney, Cuter Justice RoGer 
Brooke, miniature of his mother 
exhibited, 161 

TanKkarps, see Metalwork: Silver 

Tapestries, see Upholstery 

TariFF, protection of home indus- 
tties; 211 

TAYLOE, JoHN, house, 226 

Taytor, Joun, N. Y., upholsterer, 
advertisement, 124 

TEABOARD, silver-plated, see Me- 
talwork 

TEA-DRINKING, §7, 110, 140 

TeA SERVICES, see Metal-work; 
Pottery and Porcelain 

TeExTILes, see Upholstery 
Textiles 

Tuompson, M. E., architect, 258 

THornton, Dr. WILLIAM, 226 

TiLEs, see Pottery and Porcelain 

Tince, Capt. WILLIAM, inventory 
(1653), 28, 35 

ToILe DE Jouy, see Upholstery 

TOLERATION Act, 166 

TopsrieLp, Mass., Parson Capen 
house, 7, 73, 75 (fig. 40) 

TRANSPARENCIES, 214 

TRIPOLI CORSAIRS, 220 

TRUMBULL, JOHN, artist, Washing- 
ton portrait, 246, 253; portraits 
exhibited, 233, 256 

TurKEY work, see Upholstery 

TurtLe Bay, New York City, sze 
Beekman house 


U 


Unirep Srates BrancuH Bank, 
facade, 258 
UpuHoLsTErRY AND TEXTILES 
General. 
Colar220, 27,825, Oya rene 3: 
O85) 127, 12055120.. 130. 6no 
IgO, 191, 227, 242, 245 
Desiens) checks, i245. 0G: 
1285) 120; tO; esttipess 7. 
227 ¢ bpattiouc 6 220.gn2 co: 
252256 
Foreign influences, 51, 52, 71, 


and 


128, 210, 220, 227: Flemish, 
ti; French, $1, 52, 120, 220; 
poy Kast tANClaAn, 5 Jy aus 
Italian, 128; Oriental, 210; 
Portuguese, 52 

Importations, 25, 26, 27, $1, 
64,7122, 104-106-170, 101. 
192, 210, 220, 234, 240, 252, 
253 

Painted and printed, 26, 28, 
51, 71, 88, 93, 128, 220, 250, 
252, 253 

Printers and dyers, §1, 98 

Shops established, 28, 122-126 

By Period 

Ist. Period!) 9g, 20; 124-28, 51— 
62, exhibited, 27,79; > 71, 
78, 81, 88,93, 98, illustrated, 
ar (fig. 10), 23 (fig. 11) 

od Period: 122-1 34,1179, 190— 
1g1, exhibited, 128, 164, 
168, 178, 183, 190-192 

3rd Period: 210, 220, 221, 234, 
exhibited, 226, 227, 242, 
245, 248, 249, 250, 252, 253 

By Use 

Bed furnishings, 26, 28, 51,71, 

47, 88, 93, 126, 220, 252 

Chair coverings, 71, 128, 191, 
990, 245,252 

Chair pads, 20, 25, 70, 71, 78, 
93, 98 

Chest cloths, 71 

Chimney cloths, 28 

Cupboard cloths, 25, 26, 27, 71 

Curtains, 25, 26) 227,- 29, 058, 
71, 88, 93, 98, 123-128, 190, 
220, 227, 242, 244, 249, 250 

Cushions, 20, 25,720) 275aen, 
70,78, 88, 93, 190 

Floor “coverings, - 127, 
134,213 

Mattresses, 77 

Table carpets, 25, 27, 7! 

Wall-hangings, 123, 126, 130, 
132, 179, 245 

Wall-papers, 130, 164, 176, 
TO, OTT, 2215 243,243,253 

Window shades, 132 


eee, 


ees BS 


By Material: brocade, 220, 227, 
242, 249; brocatelle, 126, 
183; calico; 26, 205.51, 128, 
252; calimanco, 128; camlet, 
27, 190; canvas (painted), 
132, 166; Ching ‘silky 7G, 
chintz, 26, 51, 128; cotton 
(painted and printed), 71, 
88, 93, 128, 220; damask, 
20, 70, 71, 93, 124, 126, 127, 
168, 183,190; 191 22055 oy 
haircloth, 129, 220; harra- 
teen, 124, 127; lawn, 221, 
259; leather, 26,28) 7 sa 
220; linen, 78, 98, 220; linen 
(printed), 98, 220, 250, 252, 
253; mohair, 127; moreen, 
124; mull, 221; muslin, 51; 
needlework, 9, 24, 26, 28, 
70, 71; 88, 122) 1 2ege tae, 
168, 183; needlework (pa- 
triotic), 256; plush, 27, 28; 
satin, 28, 220, 242, 244, 245; 
say cloth, 26, 51; serge, $1; 
taffeta, - 220)" 227.0. 24q" 
tapestry, 9, 130, 179; toile 
de Jouy, 220, 250, 252; 
Turkey work, 9 and note, 
25, exhibited, 70, illustrat- 
ed, 23 (fig. 11); velvet, 20, 
26, 27; 70, 71, 122, 128,168, 
220; wool, 126 

Utica, N. Y., clock, 256 


V 


VALLENTINE, THomMAS, N. Y., 
landscape gardener, advertise- 
ment, 121 (note) 

Van CorTLANDT HOUSE, Carvings, 
118; decoration, 157 

VANDERLYN, JOHN, artist, por- 
trait, 120 

VAN DER SPIEGEL, JAcosus, N. Y., 
silversmith, baptismal basin, 61 
(fig. 36) 

Van Dyck, Peter, N. Y., silver- 
smith, 55, 142; tankard, 53 
(fig. 30) 


1 ICUS el ee 


Van Varick, Marcuarira, Long 
Island, inventory (1696), 28, 38 
VeLVETS, see Upholstery 
VENETIAN BLINDS, 130, 179 
VERDIGRIS, 138 
Vernon, ApMIrRAL Epwarp, anec- 
dote of Porto Bello, 150 
VERNON, SAMUEL, Newport, silver- 
smith, work exhibited, 166 
VIRGINIA, typical rooms  exhib- 
ifecib61, 172, 179; sce also Alex- 
andria; Henrico Co; Mount 
Vernon; Petersburg 


Ww 


WAaLpDoNn, SAMUEL, Boston, 165 
WatL-HANGINGS, see Upholstery 
WALL-PAPER, American, 192, 221; 
imported, 130, 221: Chinese, 130, 
exhibited, 191; English, 130, ex- 
hibited, 164; French, 176, ex- 
hibited, 234, 248, 253 
Watts, see Architecture 
WanseEy, Henry, quoted, 176; 
Journal of an Excursion to 
America, quoted, 210 
War OF 1812, 216, 256 
WarvDELL, WILLIAM, 
(1670), 28 
WasuincrTon, D. C., cornice repro- 
duced from The Octagon, 226; 
work of early Republican period 
exhibited, 226 
WASHINGTON, E.LIZABETH, 180 
WASHINGTON, GEORGE, anecdotes, 
Wa elot. 102,172,174, 186, 187, 
218 (note); inauguration, 232; 
inheritance of Mt. Vernon, 150; 
‘inventory, 143; presidential 
houses, 191, 233; secretary used 
by him, 158; teaboard owned by 
him, exhibited, 143; tour of the 
erates 213 
In American art 
Miniature by C. W. Peale, 
161; by John Ramage, 161; 
portraits by C. W. Peale, 171, 
233, 256; by Rembrandt 
Peale, 256; by Sharples, 232; 


inventory 


237 


by Wright, 187; on_ metal- 
work, 242, 252; on mirrors, 
218, 219, 252; in pottery and 
porcelain, 246, 254; prints by 
Green, C. W. Peale, and Sav- 
age, 233, 2535 prints on tex- 
tiles, 250-253 
WasHINGTON, LAWRENCE, anec- 
dote of Mt. Vernon, 150 
WasHIncTon, Marrnua, anecdotes, 
161, 194; cup and saucer ex- 
hibited, 230; portrait by C. W. 
Reale, 171 
WASHINGTON FAMILY, group por- 
trait exhibited, 239 
WASHINGTON SOCIETY, 174 
WaTerTowN, Mass., Browne 
house, windows reproduced, 76, 
80 
Warson, Annals of Philadelphia, 
quoted, 143, 190 
Wess, Henry, inventory (1660), 
70 
Wess, Isaac, Boston, clockmaker, 
50 
WEBBER, THOMAS, dyer, 51 
WEBSTER, JOHN, upholsterer, ad- 
vertisement, 132 
Wesster, Noan, portrait by 
Sharples exhibited, 232 
Wepcwoop, see Pottery and 
Porcelain (English) 
WeELLrorp, RoBert, composition- 
ornament manufacturer, work, 
9 


Wenman, Ricuarp, N. Y., uphol- 
sterer, advertisement, 123 

WERTMULLER, ADOLF, artist, por- 
trait exhibited, 256 

West, Benjamin, prints from 
paintings, 155; trip abroad, 184 

West Reppina, Conn., mill, 259 


Weston, Isaac, advertisement, 
182 

WHALE OIL INDUSTRY, 78 
WHITTIER, JOHN GREENLEAF, 
quoted, 86 

Wiikes, Joun, Chelsea-Derby 


statuette, 195; popularity, 195 


288 


Wirxins, _ brass-founder, 
tisement, 136 

Wivks, Francis, 165 (and note) 

WILLARD, AARON, JR., Boston, 
clockmaker, work exhibited, 249 

Witiarp, Simon, Boston, clock- 
maker, 236 


adver- 


WILLARD, Simon, Jr., Boston, 
clockmaker, work exhibited, 236 
Wittetr, Marinus, furniture, 


118; biographical note, 118-120 

Wittetr, Mrs. Marinus, por- 
trait exhibited, 120 

Wixiams, Erasmus, textiles, ad- 
vertisement, 128 

WiLson, JOHN, 
hibited, 161 

Witson, Mrs. JouN, miniature 
exhibited, 161 

Winpows, see Architecture 

Winpsor, Conn., 39 

Winstow, Epwarp, Boston, sil- 
versmith, 54; chocolate pot ex- 
hibited, 139 (fig. 63) 

Wise, Joun, tavern-keeper, adver- 
tisement, 172 

Wistar, Caspar, glass manufac- 
turer, work, 144 

Wircucralt, 26, 86 


miniature  ex- 


TNR? XS 


Wo re, GEN. JAMES, 155 

Wo .rENDER, JoHN, upholsterer, 
28 

Woop, Aaron, potter, work ex- 
hibited, 254 

Woop, Enocu, potter, work ex- 
hibited, 254 

Woop, Ratpx, potter, work ex- 
hibited, 254 

Woopsury, Long Island, N. Y.., 
room from Hewlett house, 94, 
95 (fig. 45) 

Woopwarpb AND Kip, N. Y., tex- 
tiles, advertisement, 129 

Woopwork, see Architecture; Fur- 
niture 

Woo ens, see Upholstery 

Worcester, see Pottery and Por- 
celain (English) 

WREN, SIR CHRISTOPHER, I00 


Wricut, Josepx, portrait of 
George Washington, 187 
Wynkoop, Benjamin, N. Y., 


silversmith, 55 
Wynkoop, Corne.tus, N. Y., 
silversmith, §5 


Ne 
YALE COLLEGE, 93 


OF THIS HANDBOOK 
3,000 COPIES WERE PRINTED NOVEMBER IO, 1924 


3,000 ADDITIONAL COPIES WERE PRINTED NOVEMBER 28, 1924 
3,000 ADDITIONAL COPIES WERE PRINTED DECEMBER 28, 1924 


SECOND EDITION OF $,000 COPIES WITH CORRECTIONS 
PRINTED MARCH 1g26 


$ 000 ADDITIONAL COPIES WERE PRINTED APRIL 1g2$ 


3,000 ADDITIONAL COPIES WERE PRINTED DECEMBER 1926 





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